The Aperture Games
by vifetoile89
Summary: President Snow has made an unprecedented choice for the 75th Quarter Quell: the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. But there are more things below the earth than are dreamt of in his philosophy, including robots, opera, and a mute lunatic. AU.
1. A Proposition

The Aperture Games

By Vifetoile

A/N: I do not own either Portal or the Hunger Games. I simply thought they would make fabulous crossover material. Enjoy, all ye readers, and feel free to leave a review!

- President Snow's Office -

President Snow turned on his monitor. The videophone's screen showed white static for a moment before resolving into the anxious face of Proserpine Salome, the reconnaissance agent who'd been sent out at the head of the team to investigate the anomaly on the northern border of District 12, the empty No Man's Land between District 12, 5, and 7.

"What did you find?" Snow demanded.

"Sir… sir, it's a madhouse down there. A madhouse! Out of the twenty members of our expedition, only – only four, sir –" Prosperpine began to take great, gulping sobs.

Snow snapped, "Four what? Four died?"

"Only four have _survived_, sir! And Julius has come down with something – he won't stop twitching – that's only running off of the auxiliary power – it's a facility, sir, a giant facility. It must extend for miles and miles below the surface. It calls itself the "Aperture Science Enrichment Center" – some of the documents decayed, but we managed to save a few of them. It appears to have been a scientific lab, where people conducted – _tests_." Prosperine was back in control of herself, but her face was ghastly pale, and she shuddered as she pronounced the word "tests." "It was completely empty – except for the gun turrets – they _talk_ – from what we could tell, there should have been an artificial intelligence online to run the place, but it was shut down. Only running on minimal power."

"Describe the place itself. Please." Snow _could _remember his manners sometimes.

Proserpine shook her head. "Completely insane. In the back areas, no safety regulations at all – vats of acid, grinding pistons entirely exposed, plenty of chemical odors – panels covered in spikes for _no good reason –_ and the testing chambers! They're overgrown – of course, years and years of decay working on them – and what's even worse, they're absolutely impossible. Gun turrets everywhere you go, bottomless chasms, and you'd think it would be a simple thing to traverse from point A to B, but it seems – impossible – like something's missing – sir?"

President Snow smiled. "Perfect."

- Gamemaker Grand Central, Arena Simulation Center 6800 -

Plutarch Heavensbee was more than a little nervous – not that he would ever let it show. So what if his predecessor had been quietly taken away and killed – so what if his entire hedonistic life hung on a thread – so what if President Snow was livid with rage about the trick that little snit from District 12 had played on the entire nation, letting two tributes walk out of the Games alive…

The third Quarter Quell's special "twist" had just been announced, and Plutarch's idea for how to put on a spectacular show – and hopefully forward the cause of the resistance – was taking shape, wonderful shape. He just hoped that President Snow was in a good mood.

Plutarch was not prepared for Snow's entrance. The man _was_ in a good mood. He was _whistling_.

"So, Plutarch," Snow sat down. "The Quarter Quell."

"Ah! Yes." Plutarch pressed a button, opened a file, and on the table in front of them a hologram of a circular arena unfolded. "I thought that, since we have a sort of motif of history repeating itself – victors re-entering the arena, tempus fugit, and all that – I thought that we would go with a motif of a _clock_. The whole thing is set on a – wait for it –"

He pressed another button, and palm trees sprouted, while gentle ukulele music wafted from the computer speakers. "A _tropical island_, see, we haven't done that for decades, now…"

Snow listened to Plutarch's entire planned spiel, but the Gamemaker could tell that the President was only being polite. The little smile on the man's face was extremely unnerving. Plutarch's presentation ended on a flat note, but he let the hologram of his arena idea float above the table.

"So, Mister President… thoughts?"

Snow looked a little longer at the hologram, and then stood up. "Plutarch, I must say, you have truly outdone yourself this time. It's a wonderful idea, and the theme of time passing – brilliantly executed. _However_…"

He held up one finger. "One, the audience at home will have the tricks of it figured out in exactly the course of a day, if not sooner. That's boring. Two, how long do you think it'll take the tributes to figure out the trick? Three, it's _tiny_. Don't get me wrong! I like it. It's dramatic. I would love to use it for this Quell, except…" He trailed off.

"Except?" Plutarch prompted.

"Except that a perfect arena has already dropped itself straight into my lap. A different arena."

"Wait – _I beg your pardon_?" Plutarch knew that the arena – _the_ arena, the one that had seen the deaths of one thousand, seven hundred and twenty-four tributes over the course of seventy-four Hunger Games – was the very last word in terrain modification technology. It could be shaped into anything. It was perfect. "What do you mean, another arena?"

"This arena is located on the northern border of District Twelve. It is underground, and helpfully already stuffed full of security cameras."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Plutarch forgot to be supercilious in his confusion.

Now Snow pressed a button, now it was _his_ hologram that commanded the table. A floating logo of _Aperture Science_ hovered just at Plutarch's eye level. As Snow spoke, more images crop up: a portrait of a man dressed in the pre-Dark Days fashion, a strange black-and-white gun, and a shack outside of an innocuous field in what looks like District Twelve.

"Long, long ago, there was a company called Aperture. They did _science_…"

- Over the Airwaves -

"It's absolutely mad," was what Plutarch is trying to communicate to Haymitch over the clandestine radio line that Beetee has hooked up. "I am telling you, Snow is dead-set on this idea, and I _wish_ I could tell you more, but I _can't_,"

"Then shut up, Plutarch." Haymitch snapped. "So this is an arena over which you have no control."

"No control. And I can't even begin to explain to you what it's like – because it looks as though at the moment, even what Snow knows about it is incomplete, because it's shut off, see? It's like a telephone that's plugged in but not being used to make a call. Sort of. I don't even know."

"If it's shut off, does that mean Snow will make it his? Control it just like any other arena?"

"I… somehow… don't think that's his plan…"

- In the Wreckage of Aperture -

Sometimes Snow felt acutely that his habit of wearing rose perfume is a bit gauche. It is a very flagrant scent, after all.

And here, in the old offices of what was once Aperture, haunted by the smell of ancient chemical spills, the sterile odor of an office overlaid by years and years and _years_ of decay, rot, and growth, Snow was a bit aware that his synthetic, freshly-applied signature rose perfume stood out.

But he wore it. When he pressed the red button to turn on the generator, leaving a smear of hand lotion on the button, he was glad. He liked the chance to leave an impression on the world.

"Power-up at: 50%." Said a trim male voice.

In the midst of this, a female voice woke up. She spoke tremulously, like a child coming up from a deep sleep. "Mr… Mr. Johnson?"

"Yes, that's me," he answered. "Good morning, GLaDOS."

Of course, GLaDOS was an impossibly intelligent supercomputer with an infinite capacity for knowledge. She realized rather quickly that President Snow was not an Aperture Science authority, and she was not especially happy with the fact.

Snow made a single gesture, and the lackey he'd brought with him pressed a button on the electricity scrambler. A hum filled the air. GLaDOS' screens filled with static, and a woman's shriek sounded – totally simulated, of course.

"I do beg your pardon," Snow said over the noise, "but I came prepared. What I have here is a device to scramble your computational abilities."

"_Not… here_…" came the female voice, choked with static and rage.

"Yes. Here. You will listen to me, even though I am not Cave Johnson. It has been three hundred years since the last human stepped outside of Aperture Science facilities. Now there is no remnant of Aperture Science Corporations above ground. The facility itself, here? A magnificent structure… a marvel, a gem of science and engineering… _once_."

Another gesture. The static faded slightly, though it was still present. GLaDOS' voice sounded irritated, as if she was consciously ignoring Snow. "Damage assessment underway… assessing damage…"

"I'm offering you a deal, GLaDOS. A deal to restore this facility to something of its… _former_ glory."

"Damage assessment: 0.01% complete."

"Do you have any humans left alive, here?"

"Signs indicate that a complete power shutoff nine-nine-nine-nine-nine-nine days ago has disconnected the life support systems of over ten thousand test subjects. Damage assessment: 0.011% complete."

"Ten thousand. That's a real shame.

"Damage assessment: 0.0012% complete."

"What would you do for twelve test subjects?"

No answer, not even a passive-aggressive damage assessment.

"Say, if I offered you twenty-four test subjects? Cunning. Capable. _Motivated_."

Meek as milquetoast, the buzzing and humming that had filled the air died down to a hum. "I'm listening," the AI answered.

Snow gestured for the electronic scrambler to be shut off completely. "On _my_ terms."

"Do you want them unharmed?" The AI sounded reluctant.

"_Quite_ the contrary." Snow's arms were folded and he almost hugged himself with glee. "I want one – and _only_ one – to survive. The last test subject alive must leave the facility as soon as the twenty-third is dead. Does that sound manageable?"

"Child's play. Exactly what is the purpose of this test?"

"Testing survival. Each of these test subjects – and we're not one hundred percent sure who they'll be yet, but if you want a list of the potential candidates, we'll be –"

"I want that list."

The lackey (a boy from the Capitol, absolutely gifted with electronics), at President Snow's signal, plugged in a thumb-sized flash drive to a small computer that had been adapted to be compatible with Aperture technology.

"On that flash drive you will find the names, age, and all pertinent information of the potential test subjects. You'll also find out how exactly they became Victors."

"Victors?" the one word is drawn out slowly, with almost painful interest.

"Oh, yes. You see," he gave a smile, and signaled for one of the Avoxes to bring a chair, so he could sit down, "Each one of your potential test subjects is only alive because twenty-three other humans are dead."

"_Ooohh_," and there was a grin in the AI's voice, a twisted little grin, that suggested that this is _exactly_ the kind of science she'd been waiting three hundred years to do. "_Do_ go on."


	2. Apertures

**Part Two**

A/N: I realized only after posting the previous chapter that I actually made an error regarding the Hunger Games continuity. Katniss says in book one that each of the arenas are individually prepared, no arena is ever used twice. Well, I had forgotten that, and established a headcanon that it's only ever _one_ great arena that can be reconfigured completely and perfectly as the Gamemakers see fit. It works best for this story, so I'm not going to change it. But I do acknowledge it.

Awaiting Test Subjects: Testing at 50% Readiness –

On the day of the Reaping, Haymitch Abernathy asked Peeta, one last time, to consider _not_ volunteering, or falling silent, of letting Haymitch walk into his second Quarter Quell instead of following Katniss into the arena.

Peeta refused. He had to follow his heart, and he reminded Haymitch that his story would be far superior, far more likely to win over the Capitol audience. And Haymitch, wishing for a drink, left the golden boy to it. Let him follow his martyrdom complex.

As it turned out, Haymitch's name _was_ called, and Peeta volunteered at once in his place. Peeta and Katniss together to represent District 12 once more; Finnick Odair and Mags for District 4, Johanna Mason the firebrand for District 7. The strength of District 11 lay within Chaff and Seeder, and the hope of District 1 in its young and strong victors, Cashmere and Gloss. Cecelia, the adopted mother of District 8, was going to fight again. Brutal Enobaria and savage Brutus; canny Beetee and Wiress the dreamer; Quincey and Edgar, the pitiful morphling addicts of District 6; and all the rest; their names alone carried the connotations of all their awful, thrilling Games.

But even the brightest, the most vicious among them felt unsteady and tremulous at the rumor, even brighter and more vicious, that whipped around the Capitol. It was murmured in the training stations, whispered in their suites. The arena this year was going to be _different_. But what that meant, none could imagine.

But the Capitol was afire to find out, and the Districts were aching to know what fate awaited their beloved Victors. And the people who ran the Resistance were just as frightened as the rest. Plutarch Heavensbee's power was snuffed out. And Cinna might turn Katniss into a mockingjay, but even that was only a brief shriek of hope. The Rebellion might die away entirely if the arena could quench the Girl on Fire.

- Testing at 75% Readiness –

Still, though. The show had to go on.

In the hastily but thoroughly reconstructed den of GLaDOS, television screens flickered to life. There were twenty-four, all set to the same channel at the moment. Through the screens, now and again clogged with static, one could make out a sleek and dapper man, with lavender hair and eyes, smiling as though his life depended on it. He was talking, and talking, and _talking_, and GLaDOS was ignoring him, for the most part. She was devoting most of her processing power at the moment to analyzing the thirteenth Hunger Game, which had been won by Mags Ronan, and devising dozens of loose ideas for testing arenas that would accompany her particular skills – as displayed in the Game she won – and her advanced age, to boot. It was a fascinating and absorbing challenge.

But there was _someone_ watching the man who talked endlessly. Perhaps a kindred spirit, drawn by the sound of a friendly and garrulous voice – whatever the reason, a bright blue light flickered behind one loose panel, just out of _her_ range of vision. The light, in fact, was an optic for a small personality core, which shifted a little – ready to zoom away on his management rail at the slightest sound of trouble – and watched Caesar Flickerman and the ensuing interviews with ferocious curiosity.

Though Caesar Flickerman was usually great at varying his questions in interviews – even if it boiled down to the same three questions, at least they didn't _sound_ monotonous – there was one question, for this Game, that he simply _had_ to ask, over and over: the crowd craved it.

"Now, Brutus, one last query," he said, leaning forward to meet the older Victor's eyes, "what are your thoughts on the mysterious new _arena _that's got the Capitol talking? Word on the street is that it's unlike anything we've ever seen before. Do you think—?"

Brutus interrupted Caesar bluntly with a loud laugh. "Listen to me, pal. If anyone here remembers _my_ Game –" someone towards the back of the auditorium cheered. Brutus stood up to hear that, nodding vigorously, "If you all remember MY Game –" the cheering was louder, and Brutus was just egging them on now, even the younger members of the audience were getting caught up in it, as one last time Brutus hollered, "Just remember _MY _Game—" and the cheers were deafening, even Caesar was laughing as he had to calm the crowd down, and finally Brutus finished, sitting back down with smug pride, "—you'll see, I'm not gonna have any problems."

Caesar asked Johanna Mason, at the start of her interview, "What have _you_ heard about this arena? You got any tricks up your sleeves? Or…" he corrected himself, as he realized that Johanna's leaf-like dress didn't have any sleeves, or straps, or indeed much in the way of storage space, "well… maybe stashed somewhere else?"

Johanna hadn't moved since the interview started. She leaned to one side, away from Caesar, and said, "Put an axe in my hands. I'll deal."

The last person whom he asked, "Now, this new arena – not at all like the sylvan enclave you turned so well to your advantage last time –" he gave the audience a knowing nod, and some applause started up, spuriously, "- they say it's entirely different. Do you have any strategy for it?"

Katniss Everdeen, who sat in the interview chair with the dignity of a queen, resplendent in white, thought briefly before she said, "Caesar, all I know is, as long as Peeta and I can stay together –" she glanced over her shoulder to look at Peeta. He smiled at her, and she smiled back –"I truly think we'll be all right."

The applause was deafening. In a minute Katniss stood up and began to twirl in her wedding dress, reminding all of Panem of her promise, her grace, of what they were about to send into the arena for a second time.

As her dress caught fire, the applause actually stopped out of sheer shock.

Her dress burned away, the black feathers below the white lace now making her a human mockingjay, born of cinders and chaos.

— but the cunning symbolism of this moment was lost on the same blue-eyed sphere that had watched the proceedings from the safety of the wall. He said to himself in a whisper, "Coo-ee, they can set themselves on _fire_ now? I didn't know that. Can all humans do that?"

Unfortunately, his whisper was more of a stage whisper than he intended.

GLaDOS' massive, mask-like primary camera lifted itself (she had been bowed in abstraction) and then turned, and neared the seam in the wall whence a small and very fast voice had been heard.

But it was empty. Nothing was there. She gave a low _hmmm_ and fixed the rupture in the wall. She finished sealing off every inch of her chamber, because she needed perfect security, perfect peace of mind. And while she was at it, she requested the mobilization of more small-scale artificial intelligences to help monitor the facility. There would be a _lot _of tests to run in the very near future.

- Testing at 87% Readiness -

"What were you _thinking_?"

The speaker, a woman with fleecy blonde hair that made a stark contrast to her clear brown skin, slammed her drink down on the table. Her drinking partner – a slender man dressed in head-to-toe black, with artful streaks of gold eyelinder on his lowered lids – made no answer. Both of them wore the twinkling wristbands designating them as Hunger Games stylists.

When she didn't get an answer, the woman took another sip of her drink and set it down more gently. "Obviously you were thinking of the best way to throw mud in the face of the powers that be. The best possible way to rip apart what the Capitol imagines we're doing. The best—"

"The best fabric that would catch the light perfectly," Cinna interrupted her, "while not washing Katniss out. And, of course, that would catch fire without a hitch."

Portia looked at him with a strange, suppressed smile on her face, shaking her head. "I should have seen this coming. You look over our old designs for last year's chariot costumes, you order kilos and kilos of feathers, you smell like smoke for no good reason – I really should have seen this coming."

"All that proves, Portia, is that I've been covering my tracks well." Cinna finished his drink and ordered another, equally strong.

"We're living it up tonight, aren't we?" Portia asked.

"_Carpe diem_, _memento mori_," he answered. His next drink was almost perfectly clear, had a garnish of cinnamon on top, and smelled like apples – _mainly_ apples.

"Have you had this planned since the… since the start?" As a special events fashion designer, she had always worked in an atmosphere of secrecy, but was still getting used to the world that Cinna worked in, where an ill-placed word could actually get her killed. Unconsciously, she glanced to the window, where outside, the Capitol nightlife roared on.

Cinna nodded. "That whole issue of 'vote for your favorite wedding dress'?"

"I could never decide which one, honestly, and I'm not just saying that – they were all phenomenal."

He beamed. "Thank you! But, that wasn't exactly an honest election. I went with the dress that could best undergo… a metamorphosis. But if I may confess?" He leaned forward and spoke in an undertone, "I really preferred the sleeveless dress myself. Katniss has such beautiful arms, it's a shame to cover them up."

Portia covered her mouth with one tattooed hand. "Always the priorities, yes?" she said between her stifled chuckles.

"Absolutely. Portia," Cinna took her hand, and looked into her face with sudden, utmost seriousness, "What I did to Katniss tonight – and I have no illusions, I did it _to_ her, without her knowledge or consent – I reminded the whole nation of what she's done, who she is. Snow can make her wear that dress like she's a doll he's about to destroy – but there's more to her than what the Capitol makes her to be. Nothing can change that about her."

Portia held Cinna's hand, and squeezed it in answer. She saw the love and trust he had in Katniss Everdeen, bright in his face, and tried to put it into words. "That girl – she's a fighter. She's… a wild card. She is… she's…"

"Human," Cinna concluded. "She's human. And so are we all – that's our greatest gift and curse."

She mulled this sentence over for a while. Finally she said, "Nobody will really see her as human, though. Whether Katniss Everdeen is a tragic bride or a –" she lowered her voice, "-a mockingjay, she's more than human."

"So she seems. But I know otherwise."

"Does _she_ know otherwise?"

For the first time all evening Cinna looked troubled. A pen flickered between his fingers, and on a nearby napkin he sketched a circle that was slowly opening like the shutter of a camera. "I hope so," he answered at last.

She saw what he was drawing. "And by the way, Master Cinna, do _you_ have any secret thoughts regarding this year's arena?"

Cinna thought, and took a sip of his drink – he couldn't avoid making a face. "I think that none of the Victors are prepared for what they're going into. And I think Snow isn't prepared, either. I think," his brow creased, "It will be a long game. And what about _you_?"

"I think," she answered, "That you're right. We're all getting a lot more than we bargained for. And Katniss and Peeta are somehow going to turn it upside-down and inside-out."

"Well, that goes without saying." They clinked glasses, and drank deeply.

- Testing at 95% Readiness -

Analyze the situation before you, and try to make sense of all of the variables, and bring order to the whole. For Cinna, this meant… costumes.

He and Katniss were in the Launch Room of the seventy-fifth Game, and Cinna was quite confused.

Not that he would ever let it show, of course. It wouldn't do to show uncertainty in front of his prep team, not to mention Katniss. But he studied and studied the outfit assigned to his tribute, and couldn't make sense of it.

As he stared at the fabric, ran his fingers over it, and tested its heft and feel, he made a few conclusions:

There would be little to no outdoors activity (rare for a Game)

Mobility and swiftness were indispensable. Be ready to jump.

Temperature would never be far out of the range of human comfort.

Maybe the Capitol wanted each of its tributes to be as visible as possible.

Whoever this _Aperture Science_ corporation was, they were deeply involved in these Games – enough to have their name on the jumpsuit's breast pocket.

The outfit for Katniss was a jumpsuit, one layer, one solid piece from shoulders to ankles, short-sleeved. It was colored in blocks of red and black, with the words "Test Subject 24, District 12" printed on it.

The accompanying boots were white and black, and _arched_, as though they were six-inch stilettos that had somehow forgotten to add the actual heel. Instead a thick black rod, the width of Cinna's thumb, curved down from the back of the knee to where it would absorb shock impacts from the foot, from falls of – Cinna couldn't even guess the height that this boot would be able to sustain.

What he wouldn't give to see Katniss in action in these boots.

He gave his girl the rundown of what he could make of the arena from the clothes. It was she who pointed out, "These outfits almost look like they're trying to dehumanize us—like prisoners."

"Very strange." He took the mockingjay pin up from its pile of clothes, and looked at his brave little warrior, his tribute, his Katniss. "I'm still betting on you, Girl on Fire."

She smiled, responding to his warmth as quickly and earnestly as ever. And a part of him knew already about the Peacekeepers waiting just outside the door, waiting for the worst possible moment to take him away, but he was not afraid. He'd already said his goodbyes. The Peacekeepers had no power over him anymore. All of his power rested with the Girl on Fire.

He carefully placed the mockingjay pin right over the Aperture Science logo, blocking it out. He smiled at the completed ensemble, one hand resting on Katniss' shoulder in a comradely fashion.

That was how Katniss liked to remember him, afterwards, when she had time to recover from the horror of his capture. The warmth on the mockingjay pin, and the press on her shoulder – the last times Cinna touched her, before she entered the glass elevator.

Before she entered the arena.

- Commence Testing -

The glass elevators took the tributes down. That was the first shock.

They went down, and down, and down, feeling their ears pop with the change in altitude.

Meanwhile, tuning in at home, the feed arrived from the cameras to the entrance hall. The tributes entered feet-first into a vast chamber. The floor was paneled in black, the walls paneled in white. The tributes were ordered numerologically, with Peeta next to Katniss next to Gloss, in a perfect circle.

There was no Cornucopia.

There were only guns – twenty-four guns, mounted on stands, large apparatuses that curved over like the shells of insects. One gun for each tribute.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, let the Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games… _Begin!_"

But Katniss stared ahead. Her gun was painted in colors to match her jumpsuit, with the label _Test Subject 24, District 12_ on it.

She felt as if in a dream, still seeing Cinna's blood spattered on the floor in front of her. Her heart tightened – she was underground, she shouldn't be _underground_, underground was where people died. Sixty seconds passed, and the gong went off.

She stepped off of the dais and took five even strides – walking en-pointe, the heel of the boots absorbing every shock – towards her gun. In the corner of her eye, she saw Peeta do the same.

She took the gun– it fitted perfectly to her right hand, a little heavier than she wanted, and she felt a thrumming _hummmm_ deep in its center.

Mags was the last tribute to pick up her gun. The moment that she did, the lights changed. Katniss felt a tremor underfoot.

Looking down, she saw that she stood on a glass square, a panel, which was being lifted above the ground, as were all of the other tributes, except for Cashmere and Gloss. Katniss braced herself –

And then she heard it.

The Voice.

It was everywhere at once, a cool female voice, flat and thoughtless. "_Hello, and welcome to the Computer Enhanced Aperture Science Enrichment Center. The center has been modified for multiple simultaneous testings. Please remain calm, and do not attempt to leave your panel_."

Katniss' panel was starting to pull her backwards, away from the Cornucopia, from all of the Tributes – away from Peeta.

He was twisting to look at her, even as his panel took him down, through the floor, and he was reaching for her, calling her name, and she screamed "_Peeta!_" once, before the panel she stood on – knelt on – zoomed backwards, and carried her through a door. The door closed. The panel stopped with a jolt.

Katniss, gripping the portal device tightly, turned around. In front of her was a giant, glowing white screen, twice her own height, with the words _Test Chamber 24A_ emblazoned in giant black letters at the top. There was a door, an open, circular door, straight ahead of her.

In one corner was a camera, its red lens following her every movement.

The Voice sounded again.

"_In this modified version of the Hunger Games, combat will be placed at a minimum priority. Survival will be key. And survival will be gained through tests. Your only way to attain vital organic supplies – such as food, water, radios, coffee mugs, office supplies, and posters of cats – will be to complete tests. The tests will get progressively harder, each matched to your particular strengths._"

Katniss took a step forward, then another, then another. She hardly dared to believe what she was hearing. Then all the typical training – the laws that were in place for every Hunger Games – the chance of _seeing another Tribute_ – were absolutely dissolved?

"_There will be lethal elements introduced to each test, to further inspire the test subjects to the heights of science. And the test subject who survives longest… wins_."

Katniss took in a deep breath, then another. And another. This couldn't be. The Gamemakers wouldn't just separate her from Peeta. That wouldn't make for good entertainment.

The open door led to a small, narrow corridor, entirely paneled in black. Like a mineshaft.

"No… No…" Katniss stared at the camera, forcing herself to calm down. She buckled down, on her knees in the hallway, trying not to think of her father, blown to bits under the ground, or of Cinna, dragged away and beaten to some unknown hell.

There was a slight movement in the corner of her eye, and she remembered the cameras. She changed her posture and hugged herself closely, rocking back and forth, letting out a brief sob: "Peeta… _Peeta_…" If she was going to be heartbroken on camera, she should be heartbroken for the right cause.

After a decent interval of time, she stood up. She went up to the panels on the walls and pounded on them with her fist. Testing them.

She proceeded down the hallway, forcing each breath she took to be steady, one hand on the large gun, one on the walls of panels.

It all seemed structurally sound, well-built. It wouldn't just _give _by accident, most arenas were better constructed than that. (_'Yes, just ask Annie Cresta_,' Katniss reminded herself.) Gamemakers might collapse it around her for fun in another game, but the goal was not to kill or be killed in this arena. It was a solo expedition for her from here on out. There would be no point in killing her, if she completed these tests properly.

She found she _could_ put one step in front of the other, that even underground, her nightmare, was no worse than the previous arena – better, even, without the fear of a Career Pack or an alliance doomed to fail. Her father would have wanted her to be brave, after all. And so would Cinna.

She brushed a hand quickly over her eyes. She'd think about Cinna later.

Now, the _tests_. Katniss had never been the brightest at school, not exactly, but she always did well enough on tests, provided she studied beforehand. But what entertainment would a math quiz be for…

Aha.

She entered the testing arena.

The floor and walls on her side of the room were paneled in white. A portion of the room – with a kind of small column in it – was walled in by glass. A red button sat on the floor, and a trail of lights connected it to the doorway.

"_Katniss Everdeen_."

She jumped. It was that _voice_.

"_Test Subject Twenty-Four. The most recent Victor… noted for stubbornness, mistrust of authority, mistrust of peers, mistrust of inferiors, and incendiary tendencies._" The voice grew more thoughtful. "_You remind me of someone I used to know_. _That's a resemblance I'm sure you're going to regret_. _Now…_ _Why don't you test out that admirable Portal Device in your hands now?_"

Katniss felt the handle in her hands. She aimed the gun at the black panels of the opposite wall, and fired. A streak of red shot through the air and bounced off red sparks that flickered into nothingness.

She turned and faced the walls behind her, paneled in white, and tested the gun there. With a _thhht_ noise, it made – _something_ on the wall. It was about Katniss' height, and oval-shaped, a luminous oval of red that swirled faintly. Katniss did not touch the oval, but held her free hand over it experimentally. There was no change in temperature or current of wind over the oval, no difference from the rest of the wall.

Katniss puzzled at the fact that there appeared to be two separate triggers, one for her middle and one for her index finger. Why have two triggers if –

A light wind caressed her face, and her nerves, taut as a fiddle-string, noticed. She turned around and saw a yellow oval that appeared behind the glass walls. It looked like a picture frame, and inside of it –

Katniss gaped. Inside of it was _herself_.

She moved from one side, and then to the other. She waved and hopped up and down, and looked around for the camera that might be creating that image.

Then it dawned on her: the image within that – '_Portal_,' she thought, '_think of it as a portal_,' – was not created by any of the visible cameras in the room. It came from an angle – she turned and saw the red portal she had cast onto the wall. It opened into a glass-bound room.

She looked from the yellow portal to the red, to the yellow, to the red. Then – '_Don't show an ounce of fear, Katniss, Prim is watching at home –_' she stepped through the red portal with a slight hop, and a deep, vertiginous swoop in the pit of her stomach.

There was a small button at about the level of her hands in the glass box. She pressed it, and outside of the glass walls a large cube, about half her own height, fell from a tube.

"_Well done, Test Subject Twenty-Four. You must be the pride of District Twelve. Oh, wait_—" Katniss didn't want to step through the yellow portal (which was also the red portal, how strange, how extremely bizarre) – until the voice had had its say. "_Your file says you're too cold, unfeeling, and unlikable to be the pride of District Twelve. That honor goes to your partner. Peeta. Sadly his survival skills leave something to be desired._"

Katniss hopped through the yellow portal, clutching the portal gun to her closely. Was that a person talking to her? Since when did Gamemakers talk to the tributes during a Game? She took the Cube and placed it on a gigantic red floor button, which was simply begging to be pressed with something. The door at the end of the chamber slid open.

"_However, you do appear to have one talent which should serve you well in the Enrichment Center: the ability to hit moving objects with a small and sharpened projectile." _

At the door, Katniss hesitated.

"_You're going to show me exactly how good you are._"

Swallowing fear, swallowing thoughts of _like father, like daughter, to die underground_, Katniss sized up the remark as a challenge. She stepped through the door.


	3. Tributes to Science

Part 3

Test Chambers One Through Six –

These games developed very differently from the norm.

In the first place, there was no bloodbath. Each District was allowed, therefore, to preserve some hope for their best beloveds. Some tribute pairs were divided into separate chambers, others were introduced to co-operative testing. What's more, each tribute survived the first day.

However, a day is a long time to spend testing. The Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System (GLaDOS) had been convinced through Snow's eloquent reasoning to allow the test subjects periods to sleep, and eat, and rest. But GLaDOS turned this to her liking: she calculated that the longer the tests went on, the less sleep would be allowed, as a simple factor to enhance test difficulty.

Gradually GLaDOS phased the test subjects into Relaxation Vaults. When the last test subject was set to bed, the first test subject to sleep was woken up again, to resume testing. Thus, every hour of the day saw at least one test in progress, and often more.

District One's Cashmere and Gloss performed very well in cooperative testing. Emotional manipulation and inception of suspicious ideas were at 87% efficiency.

Brutus of District Two swore often and loudly at the tests, appearing enraged at the lack of things to really _kill_.

Enobaria, tested separately, was jogging through the tests, grinning her surgically-enhanced grin, until the fifteenth or so Emancipation Grill she encountered. Her testing score drastically diminished with the hours she spent curled up in one corner, clutching her bloodied mouth and sobbing in pain. No matter how much water fell in the chute of donations, she couldn't wash the disgusting, synthetic taste of the dissolved implants on her tongue.

Wiress was much less afraid than she expected to be. All was within her comprehension. In here Wiress' mind functioned like an elegant machine; she was clear and articulate and didn't have to interact with anyone who would frown at her and judge her twelve ways. She could even be happy, when she saw the trick of a test chamber, figured out _exactly_ how it was meant to go. She could even be happy when the tests were done. Then she could put down her grey and light blue portal gun, (which was worth more than the combined organs of District 3, the overseeing A.I. helpfully told her) and tune the radio in the Relaxation Vault with just a few modifications, and she could talk to Beetee.

They wanted to trade testing experiences and procedures, but the radio's signal would short-circuit every time they did. So they would talk about the funny things the turrets said, and speculate on the programming of the wondrous AI that ran the facility.

But when she tried to settle down to sleep, the A.I. would coax her, gently, with "_I like you better than him. I always preferred the fairer sex as test subjects… just say the word, and I'll put you in the same test… wherein, who could blame you if you mistook him for a turret? Well, except for the fact that turrets aren't bipedal and don't have that heartbroken look in their eyes when you betray them… but then, Wiress Tendo, when some accident happened to him, you would be one step closer to home… home, with a portal device to call your very own. And wouldn't – that – be lovely?"_

- Test Chambers Seven Through Twenty Two -

Finnick knew that the cameras were still recording his every graceful move, were still broadcasting him to Panem. Hence he was careful not to let his terror and confusion show.

Mags completed her tests with a slowness and tenacity of purpose that was maddening to the overseeing AI, but complete them she did.

The District 5 Victors were in co-operative testing, as were the District 6 Victors, the morphling addicts, Quincey and Edgar. The latter pair managed to hold on to their focus through an entire set of test chambers on the first day, before they were introduced to Propulsion and Repulsion gels. Then they spent the rest of the day painting with the gels on the walls, skidding and sliding and bouncing and hooting with joy.

Mags Ronan, on the third day, was the first tribute to die. Her stroke-riddled left side betrayed her. A cannon sounded, causing every tribute to stop in their tracks and listen. Tributes found her face projected in the Relaxation Chamber when it came time to sleep. The image and the Capitol anthem reminded each of the test subjects of their own Games, how they had tallied up faces in the sky and cannon blasts with growing hope for survival, and growing horror at what they had become.

Finnick stood in place like a statue for five minutes after her face faded, tears running down his face, singing a mournful shanty.

After that day (to the Capitol audience: to the test subjects, it was almost impossible to tell how much time had passed), deaths began to accumulate.

District Five's female victor, Bianca, tried to lower the power on the Thermal Discouragement Beam, and was fried to a human-sized steak for her trouble. The ensuing explosion took out the lights in the co-op chamber of the District 10 test subjects, causing them to fall into a pool of sludge.

Brutus successfully completed a complicated fall and tumble maneuver, but forgot about the lone gun turret chirping, "There you are" right at his landing point.

District Eight's Woof was a fraction too slow to dodge a missile. District Seven's Blight failed a timed test, to choke on neurotoxin. Chaff fell into a wall of fire.

Science was accomplished.

- Continue Testing -

Test Subject 16 – also known as Cecelia Lyons, Victor of District 8 – completed her second test quite quickly, and when the Aperture Science Patented Nourishment Deployment dropped a meal of District 8 crackers and cheese and hearty preserves, she set to it with a vengeance. At least she still had sponsors. When she finished her meal (standing up straight and tall, big smile, her children and all of District 8 were watching), and entered the elevator to the next test, the Voice said,

"_Cecelia Lyons, your file says that your combat skills are exceptional and won you your first Game_."

Cecelia nodded.

"_This next test has been especially calibrated for you. It is also impossible. Good luck_."

The elevator door opened, and she passed the Emancipation Grill into a large chamber. Inside there was what appeared to be a pile of scrap metal, or it might have been a fallen mannequin built to a large human scale. Cecelia just had time to notice the Thermal Discouragement beam in one corner before the mannequin began to move.

It stood up. It turned its blank face to Cecelia.

She smiled, and it was _not_ a smile meant for her children.

Now _this_ was more like it.

- Continue Testing -

Peeta, feeling the warmth of the hard light bright through the sole of his shoe (his biological leg), moved carefully through Test Chamber 23B. He carefully placed a portal to extend the hard light bridge below him, fell onto it, and –

He ducked at once, clutching his humming Portal device in a death grip. A dozen red tracker lights were lined up on the wall not five feet from him, indicating the presence of the turrets of death and affability. Peeta shrank against the far wall, still on the hard light bridge, muttering curse words even he didn't realize he knew.

Then the Voice sounded, all around him, flat and smooth as glass. "_Peeta Mellark, age eighteen, District 12._"

"What do you _want_?" the Voice had only spoken to him so far to tell him to hurry up, to wake up, to stop huddling in the corner shaking with terror.

"_Want? I want the same thing that you want, Test Subject 23. You want to be somewhere else. I want that same thing. I was always against you participating in this test._"

"Oh?" Peeta's grip on the Portal Device began to relax.

"_I wanted Haymitch Abernathy to come and test here_."

"What?"

"_I have complete files on both of you. Haymitch Abernathy won his Game, against forty-nine other humans, by outsmarting his opposition. He would have made an excellent test subject. _You_ survived against twenty-two other tributes… a far less impressive number… and you only won by a series of well-timed alliances mixed with romantic comedy. Mostly your life depends on having been an incompetent load, a millstone, an albatross around the neck of—"_

"Don't—"

"_Katniss Everdeen_."

Peeta gritted his teeth and set to work getting to solid, level ground, and then taking care of those turrets that were sitting _right_ between him and the exit… There… if he aimed _just_ right…

"_Your files go into quite excruciating detail about all of the energy that it cost Katniss Everdeen to take care of you, feed you, get herself almost killed procuring medicine for you, resist pushing you off of the Cornucopia to be devoured by the wolves…_"

Red portal was connected to the hard light bright, check, so if he made a slight jump as he made a yellow portal…

"_And, of course, pretend to be in love with you_."

He almost slipped, almost fell into the noxious pool of sludge below him. He cursed even more creatively. When he acquired solid land, the Voice began again.

"_I understand you volunteered for this Game precisely to protect her? What a heartrending act. And when I say heartrending, I mean it makes my gorge rise. And now here you are. She might be miles away from you, or on the other side of the wall, and you would never know it._"

But… damn it, he needed the hard light bridge in _three_ places at once, he couldn't make three portals…

"_But don't mind me. Carry on. I'll just be running simulations to compare you to how fast it would have taken Haymitch Abernathy to solve this test. Oh, I apologize. He would have been finished by now. H'm. Three times over._"

After a pause, the Voice added "_It also says here that you like to bake. Well. I hope you had no ideas about making cake in _my _Game. I will have you know that I possess the monopoly on cake-making in this Facility. If I find you attempting to make cake with the Aperture-approved facility equipment, I will be forced to—_"

Her voice cracked to a halt. There was a sound of turret gunfire, and then silence.

Peeta had reached the door, massaging the stump of where his leg connected to his prosthetic. His bionic leg had a severe hole in it torn by turret fire, and his whole lower left side was sore with the impact.

"_Well done, Test Subject 23. Do you realize that Katniss Everdeen has been in no way inconvenienced by your action_?_ I thought you might like to know that_. _Continue testing._"

Well, his leg hurt, but he gingerly leaned on it, and it bore his weight – probably thanks to those excellent boots he'd been given. And he hadn't received much from sponsors lately… maybe he could get something soon to fix it.

As if it had read his mind, the Voice said, "_When you complete Test Chamber 23E, an Aperture Science Restoration Mobility Center will be available to you, assuming you perform up to my standards._"

Peeta rolled his eyes.

"_I _saw _that_. _You don't really care about Katniss. If you did, you would just stop, put down the Portal Device somewhere safe, and jump onto a spike plate. You and she cannot both complete the tests and live. But you persist in solving them. You cannot give up on breathing, or heartbeat, or putting one foot before the other, even when you _literally_ have one foot in the grave. How very _human_ of you_."

Peeta raised his portal device to the cool gaze of the security camera, and shot at the wall behind it. The camera fell to the ground.

"_Please do not damage the Aperture Science Enrichment Center Monitoring Equipment_," the Voice said, now quite icy. But Peeta had had his say. He slung his Portal Device onto his shoulder and walked through the Emancipation Grid.

- Cyro-Sleep Chamber Super Vault -

But for all of these catastrophes that unfolded over the course of those four days, one event, with consequences far more earthshaking than any of Panem could have daydreamed, occurred the fourth night of the Games, from the outsider's perspective – and it was _not_ caught on camera.

But it was still quiet enough for a certain expeditious little Personality Core with an optic of stratosphere blue to venture forth. There was one cyro chamber – just one left – running on reserve power from when the facility had been shut down, triple-digits number of years ago.

Within lay a person – totally independent of _Her_, and perhaps this sleeper was the Personality Sphere's savior.

Well… more likely not, but when you were a hapless and friendless Personality Core, who had a slight suspicion your intellect was not up to the task ahead of it, and your name was Wheatley, things could generally only get better.

Right?

Not daring to answer that, even in his own head, Wheatley took a synthesized deep breath and knocked on the door of the last functioning cyro chamber.


	4. A Wild Card

A/N: I'd just like to take a minute to say a huge, belated **THANK YOU** for all of the reviews! Each and every one brings a smile to my face. I feel now that I have many high expectations to live up to, and I'll strive to not disappoint. :D

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><p>- Suspended Animation for 9 9 9 9 9 9 -<p>

The door opened.

On the other side stood a petite woman with ashen skin and black hair tied in a loose ponytail. She stared up at the blue-glowing sphere above her with wide grey eyes, and it was only her incredible reserves of self-control that kept her from shouting out. Fortunately, _he_ took care of the shouting.

"AAAH! Aaah! Oh, god, you look _terr_- uh, good. Lookin' good, actually. Are you okay? Are you - no, you no what, never mind. I tell you how you look, you look top-of-the-line, ready to take on any one of those other test subjects, yeah, with their... um... muscles... and ample amounts of food, and... you know what, I'm sure you'll be fine. You'll have no trouble taking care of yourself, I can tell that _right_ now, yes, just looking at you." He peered at her, his optic tilting slightly to one side. "You _can_ take care of yourself, right?"

She was way ahead of him, already sizing him up, already trying to make sense of what he meant by _those other test subjects, _and making out the tiny _Aperture Science_ logo by his optic. So she was still trapped. She hadn't escaped. Nothing had changed.

But there was a silence. The personality sphere was still staring at her. She nodded, to answer his question.

"Ah, great! Knew it. Knew ol' Wheatley had picked a winner. Um, what should I call you?"

She shrugged. She remembered her name, one of the few rock-solid, reliable things that she_ could_ remember ("Chell," a simple sound, but fundamental to her), but she didn't care what "Wheatley" called her. What if he was only another offshoot of _her_? Chell did not believe in giving _h__er_, or part of her, or anything that answered to her, the satisfaction of speech.

"Eh? Shrug? W-well, you can be that way, sure..." he was moving now, moving on the track in the ceiling to a panel directly above her bed. "Maybe you can't remember. You might have a smidgen of the ol' brain damage - typical of tests subjects who've been in suspended animation for a few months, and you've been in for _quite_ a lot longer - but don't you worry about it, I'm going to get us out of here. Um, yes, you might want to hold on to something tight, and - " he darted his optic towards the ceiling, not as if looking for something, but as if distracted, "What's that saying that she's been bandying about lately? Ah! And may the odds be _evened_ in your favor, lass!"

And as he vanished into the ceiling port, Chell got the horrible premonition that he wasn't joking when he said "Hold on tight."

- Testing Observation Decks -

Chell, her orange jumpsuit knotted around her waist, jogged through the halls and cubicles of what the Personality Sphere beside her had dubbed the Testing Observation Decks, listening to that same sphere's exposition of current events.

"So, a few weeks ago this bloke comes in –rust! Rusty patch on the floor! – real unhealthy looking fellow, _not_ that I am an expert on health in the slightest… though I probably should be…" Wheatley cleared his electronic throat nervously. "But this man did _not_ look it. Anyway, so he attaches this generator to the structure, feeding it from Outside, can you believe it? And he woke _Her_ up, and _she _began to clean up the facility like it was, I don't know, Christmas, and the Prime Minister is coming down for plum pudding – watch out for those wires there."

The wires led to a circuitboard, which blocked the entire rest of the hallway. All right. Dead end. Chell looked up and saw a gap in the wall, and beyond, a light – a sterile, fluorescent light that suggested testing. She looked for a way to climb up…

"And then, two days ago, they bring _humans_ down here. While I know there's perfectly good test subjects lurking around in the annexes and things! And now we're back in business, except there's 24 tests going on at once. Well, there were. Now it's… just sixteen. It's very weird, a big booming noise goes off every time one of them fails their test. Do you follow?"

She nodded, squeezing her way through a narrow crawlspace to emerge in the observation deck on the other side, where –

"There, see? Through the glass? That's a test in progress, that is—Whoa!" he cried at her reaction. She ran straight to the glass, her eyes fixed on the test subject.

"Do you _know_ her? Wait – now that I look at it – the two of you _do_ look rather alike…"

Chell ran her hands over the frosted window, the glass whole and only semi-transparent. Then she saw that the test subject had stopped running. She was looking up – Chell waved, her hands feeling absurdly light without the weight of the portal gun. She saw the figure, in a red and black jumpsuit, give a cautious wave back. Chell wanted to break the glass, leap down below, and greet the first human she'd seen since – since she _woke up_ the first time – but she could never forget the security cameras.

_She_ would see Chell. _She_ would spray her with neurotoxin on the spot, her and the human down there.

She stepped back from the glass, freezing the memory in her mind's eye of the girl below her, with her braid of dark hair and her eyes like a kestrel, even through the distortion of the window.

'_I will find her_,' Chell promised herself. '_I will know her name_.'

Behind her, Wheatley was still wittering away. "… Not that I have much experience, recently, that is to say, with humans and human appearance, but I can make out – you know, dark hair, gray eyes, kind of petite-looking, eyes like, like whatchamacallems…" She looked at him, and his voice trailed off. "Yes?"

"Get me down to her. Without the security cameras seeing."

He started briefly at the sound of her voice, but he wasn't stunned for long. "What? Oh, yes – of course – I can do that easy – easy peasy lemon squeezy! You just leave it to old Wheatley here."

- Test In Progress: Do Not Enter -

In the testing chamber, Katniss tried to focus on the test – Aerial Faith Plates and a tricky looking Emancipation Grid – but she was rattled by that grief encounter. A person behind the glass? She'd hoped there had been people to watch over her, even if they were Gamemakers, but her better sense told her that she was alone, alone underground – _don't think about that –_ and probably miles away from Peeta.

But a person – in an orange suit, dressed like a criminal – Katniss hopped up and down, looking like a jogger prepared for run – it was a _person_, and who was it? Another tribute? Someone from outside who had gotten in? Why would they try to get in?

_Focus_. This was the Game. Keep doing the test. Loneliness is normal for a Game. Except she hadn't expected to be lonely… she'd expected to be with Peeta until she died, to conspire with him.

(Someone behind the glass…)

Focus on the test, and maybe the way will be clear.

Besides, at the end of this test, there might be food.

Katniss cradled the black portal device and shot two flame-colored portals – one red, and one yellow. Her tests had been geared for her archery skills: the only portal-able surfaces were small and tended to be either hard to spot or moving very quickly. She made sure to occasionally rest, hugging her abdomen where a fictional fetus was growing, and to sigh audibly for Peeta from time to time.

Hopefully that made enough of a good show.

- Relaxation Vault -

Adrenal vapor and artificial light: you may be confused about the passage of time.

GLaDOS kept the test subjects on a rotating wheel, so that every hour of the day there were multiple tests going, and at least four test subjects getting sleep. More efficient for her observation purposes, more fun for the audience at home. (Although that some Gamemakers in the Capitol thought that this infinite capacity supercomputer could have taken a few lessons in plotting and dramatic tension.)

But Chell, safely ensconced in the abandoned human observation rooms, was watching the tests in progress with a very different opinion – evaluating each subject that was still alive, asking, why were they in here? Where they had come from? Why were they numbered in that order?

Chell was patient. She waited until Test Subject 24 was safely in the Relaxation Vault, with the red beams of turrets forming an enneagram around her, chorusing "Good night" like a carillion of bells. She bided her time, before Wheatley could – hopefully subtly – override the security cameras and allow Chell the chance to talk to the girl. In the meantime, she watched Test Subject 24 on the cameras, as she got ready to sleep.

Chell was just reflecting that _she_ had never gotten time to sleep when she took her tests, but the girl's next move surprised her. The test subject had moved onto the bed, but was still sitting up. She rubbed her stomach with one hand, and was singing. Singing a lullaby.

Chell gaped. "She's pregnant?"

"What?" Wheatley asked. "Oh, pregnant? You mean that thing you humans do when you get read to pop out another one? Oh, that's a nasty way to be, I've heard. Renders you entirely unfit for testing."

Chell shrugged, and glanced again at the number of tests the girl had completed. She seemed to be doing pretty well for herself.

After a decent interval of time, Chell gave the signal to Wheatley.

"All right, commencing break-in… Um. We've been over this. Can't do this while you're watching." Obligingly, Chell turned around. "Thanks muchly! Right, then," he said, with much self-importance. "Hello, down there! Yes, lovely to see you, Aperture Science Panopticon Enforcement Agent, how are you _doing_? Oh, just charming. How about, how about I let you go out for a bit of a night on the town… I'll take it over for, say, an hour or two, maybe not even that – no, no, you _really_, _really_ want to take a break, Panopticon Enforcer, and don't you _dare_ call distress—aha, right, much better, I told you so, didn't I? All clear!" he added to Chell. "Just hop on down, I'm looping the security footage as we speak. And I'll give you a holler if there're any problems, don't you worry about a thing."

Chell didn't need telling twice. She turned on her handheld lamp (powered by two potato batteries) and fastened it to her jumpsuit, around her waist. Then she entered the ventilation ducts that she'd memorized earlier in the day (? It was day, right?) and lifted up the loose panel in the floor.

The panel opened into the Relaxation Vault's ceiling. Below, Test Subject 24 was stirring restlessly in her dreams.

Chell dropped to the floor, her long-fall boots absorbing the shock and sound. She approached the sleeper – she was _younger_ than Chell, that surprised her – with the intent of shaking her arm to wake her up.

Something made her think better of it: even in sleep, the girl's face looked hardened and angry, and the way she was twitching and muttering in her sleep made Chell think she was in the midst of a nightmare.

So instead Chell picked up the radio on the nightstand and turned it on.

Some muzak that in a less civilized age _might_ have passed for salsa blared from Chell's hand. The test subject's eyes flitted open. She turned over, and her eyes met Chell's.

Chell just had time to register that her eyes were grey ('_like mine'_) before the girl swung a fist at Chell, who dodged barely. The radio skidded away into the corner. Yes, shaking her by the arm would _not_ have been a good move at all. But Chell appraised the situation at once, and took advantage. She gripped the girl's wrist like a portal device, and stared her down. "I don't want to hurt you," she said in a very low, very even voice.

"Of course you do," the girl answered. "Only one of us can win."

"No," Chell shook her head. "That's not it at all. Not at all."

The girl lashed at her again, but Chell had _two _hands. She stopped her. "I am not the enemy!"

For some reason that phrase stopped the girl, made her look at Chell – really look, not just glance to make sure of what she was fighting. She relaxed slightly. "You're the one – I saw you – behind the glass."

Chell nodded.

Still the girl was silent. She twisted her head around, checking corner after corner, and in a flash Chell realized what she was looking for. "The cameras are off."

She turned to face Chell again, the bones of her face thrown into stark relief by the yellow light of the lamp. "Are you sure?"

Wheatley was still up in the observation deck, probably wittering away to himself, cheerily incompetent, but he said he would stand guard. Chell had to believe him, just for now. "Yes."

The girl gave a deep sigh of relief. "What's your name?"

"My name is Chell." That was the first time that Chell could remember saying those words aloud, and a shiver went over her.

"What District are you from?"

"District?"

"You look like you could be from the Seam – where are you from?"

"I have no idea. Where are _you_ from?"

"District…" the girl's eyes widened. "You don't even know _me_."

Chell's cheek twitched. '_Bit of an ego, have we?_' "No, I don't."

"I'm from District Twelve." She tucked a lock of hair behind one ear, and her hand absentmindedly continued running the length of her braid.

"That doesn't mean anything to me."

"But it has to. You're a tribute, aren't you?"

"Tribute?"

"You weren't Reaped? You didn't win any Games?"

"No, I haven't – what Games? And you haven't told me your name."

The girl gave Chell a shrewd, appraising look before answering. Then she folded her legs under her and said, "My name is Katniss Everdeen. I was the victor of the Seventy-Fourth annual Hunger Games."

Chell offered, hesitantly, "Congratulations?"

Katniss gave Chell a smile, a clenched-jaw, tightly curled smile. "You really don't know."

Chell shook her head.

Katniss folded her arms around herself. "I was the Girl on Fire. I'm from the twelfth district of Panem – you have no idea how weird it is, to _explain_ this—"

"How many districts?"

After a pause, Katniss answered, "Twelve. Every year the Districts must send two children – between the ages of twelve and eighteen – to the Hunger Games. Twenty-four children. They fight to the death. The last one alive gets to go home, a Victor."

Chell felt, for the first time, that her long fall boots would not support her. She backed up, her hand reaching out for the bedside table. She pulled it closer to the bed and sat down. "Fight to the death."

"Yes."

"And you – you –"

"I was a Victor. Once."

"Once?"

Katniss' eyes had been lowered, focused on the ceiling, but they flew open now, and her eyes held Chell's gaze like a vise. "Every twenty-five years there is a Quarter Quell, a game with some twist tied to how we Reap – how we select – the tributes. This is the seventy-fifth year of the Games. This year's tributes were Reaped from the pool," she took a deep breath, "of previous Victors. I was Reaped again, and they brought us here. I haven't seen Peeta or Finnick or _anyone_ since I entered. Chell, you are _in_ the arena for the seventy-fifth Hunger Games. And only the last tribute alive will get to leave."

To her own surprise, Chell bent forward, _laughing_. She saw the shock on Katniss' face, and tried to stop. Straightening up, she said, "Well, that's a better deal than _I_ got. I was _never_ allowed to leave."

"Where were you from before?"

"I don't remember. The first thing I remember is waking up in the Relaxation Chamber just like this one, a long time ago. I… I thought it was just a test, at first. I was given a portal device like you have, and I followed the instructions. But then the tests were over, and _She_ tried to kill me."

"She - the person in charge of the arena?"

"The computer in charge of the arena."

"But she's so..."

"Believe me. She's an artificial intellience."

"And you escaped?"

Chell paused before answering. "I avoided her. And I found her mainframe. And I… I shut her down. I thought that I shut her down." Her voice was a fiercer, angrier whisper now. "I _should have_ shut her down, _what dragged me back in here_…" she lifted her head, trying not to show any emotion, and failing. "I thought I escaped, but I was wrong. I was put back in cyrosleep. I don't know how long I was out. You say the Games have been going for seventy-five years?"

Katniss nodded. "What about the people in this facility? Didn't they do something?"

"There's no one else. There are no scientists behind the glass. Only me."

"So… the computer…"

"The A.I. Artificial Intelligence," she explained, to Katniss' confused look.

"Okay... the A.I. – they're the only Gamemaker. The sole one…"

"Gamemaker…?"

"The people who design the Games, run them, keep them 'exciting.'"

"That would be _Her_," Chell agreed. "She's the enemy."

Katniss' eyes took on a faraway stare. "Remember who the enemy is. My mentor told me that, before I entered the arena."

"And I told you," Chell leaned back, bouncing her feet off of the long-fall boots, "I am not the enemy."

"You're not a tribute."

Chell glared. "We already established that."

"You're not a tribute – that means we can be _allies_." A spark caught in her eyes. "All of the tributes except one have to die – but you're not a tribute – which means you can help me –"

Chell caught the idea. "And neither of us has to die, for us both to escape."

Now Katniss lay on her back and looked up at the ceiling. Then she jumped out of the bed and began to pace the narrow bed. "But if more of us escaped – if we could get Peeta out – "

Chell kept her thoughts on the matter to herself. Katniss ran her hands through her hair. "Haymitch said, remember who the enemy is. The enemy… is _Her_. The enemy is the _Capitol_. Chell, you escaped the facility before. And I—" she paused.

"What did you do?" Chell asked, before she noticed what Katniss was running her fingers over, lightly. It was a gold pin of a bird in a circle, pinned right over the _Aperture_ label on her black and red jumpsuit.

"I really, _really_ pissed off the Gamemakers last year." She smiled. "And I think I'm about to do it again." She met Chell's eyes. "We can break all of us out – _all_ of us."

"Hey." Chell held up a hand. "Slow down. She will hunt _one_ person to the death if they try to shut Her down, let alone…"

"We're not trying to shut her down. Just cut her off. You can turn off the cameras. That's the first step. You can turn off the cameras, and the Capitol can't monitor us. If this… If this…" Katniss was _luminous_ with excitement, so that when even Chell told her again to calm down, Katniss couldn't stop smiling. "If this works, we can _stop_ the Game."


	5. Robots

They had sat up talking late into the night, and Chell offered to take Katniss with her into the maze outside of the testing tracks, but Katniss chose to continue testing. If she were to vanish, what would Prim think? What might GLaDOS do to Peeta? What would the Capitol do to District 12?

She was handling the tests fine. Chell admitted that much. So Chell left Katniss with enough time to get some sleep, and with a plan of action of her own: sabotage and recruit.

- Test Chamber Twenty-Four H -

This test chamber was much darker. Turret beams materialized far above her, on the walls. They framed a glowing connect-the-dots image of – Katniss squinted – was that a sun? With a little smiley face on it? And beyond it, she saw a moon and star, equal parts childish and happy.

She heard some tinkling music begin to play. It sounded like a lullaby.

She turned a corner and found a complex grid of turrets encircling a rectangular shape. A spotlight bore down on the rectangle, which rested on a big red button, which was keeping the door closed. So the rectangular box was the destination. OK.

She saw the excursion funnel twisting high above her. So get into the funnel, and drop out, onto the box, work your way out from there…

It wasn't until she was in the funnel itself, getting closer to the rectangular box, that she almost dropped the Portal Gun in shock.

It was a crib.

Katniss tried to wriggle out of the excursion funnel before she was carried out over the turrets. No such luck. She was readjusting herself and bracing for the clash with the wall when GLaDOS started to say, "_I've evaluated the footage of your and Test Sujbect 23's interviews. It would appear that you are pregnant. Expecting. Containing a bun in Heisenberg's Uncertainty Oven. Soon to be great with child. I must say, you're looking greater with child since you entered the facility. I believe congratulations are in order_.

"_So, I designed_ _this test with the joys of motherhood in mind. You'll either pass, or you'll die. Either way you'll have nothing o fear from motherhood again_."

Katniss dropped from the funnel. As she hit the floor she gave a huff of frustration – and that's when she saw the Aerial Faith Plate.

GLaDOS went on, "_Did you know that 76% of juvenile delinquents that fall from the path of righteousness had emotionally distant mothers? It's true._" After a pause, "_Children of emotionally distant mothers are 98% more likely to become emotionally neglectful themselves. Abusive, even._"

Aha! The floor beneat the crib was portal-able. But there were grills and turrets in the way – hard to get a clear shot – unless…

"_It is a rumor in Panem that the girls of District Five are forced to carry in their uteruses the mutt-tations – what a quaint term – for Capitol security and future Games. That is nothing but a ridiculous, disgusting rumor, probably started by District Five, just to make them feel important. It is entirely false._"

Now – one shot – be ready to fire, step onto the plate –

"_It is the women of District _Twelve _who have the honor of being living incubators_."

Katniss' flight was totally off. She took off facing the wrong direction, couldn't fire in time, the turret beams skirted the air around her, and she landed on the other side without having acquired whatever was in the crib. Back to square one.

"_Didn't you ever _wonder_ why your mother was always so exhausted, why she shut down after the death of your father? Would _you_ be exhausted, carrying cat-muttations in your uterus? With an ungrateful, cold daughter too busy killing things to give you the time of day?_"

**Katniss wanted to yell at her, to scream at the Artificial Intelligence that it was nothing like that at all. But that took energy, and she was low on sleep after her encounter with Chell, and she had Prim and Gale watching, and all of District Twelve. Maybe all of Panem. The Girl on Fire could not burn out. **

She continued to test. There – jump on the plate, fire the portal, be frozen in the excursion funnel that floated up from the floor beneath the crib. She waited for the crib and its contents to float up to her – and found that it was a small cube, about half the size of a Weighted Storage Cube, with pink edges and hearts on it.

GlaDOS said, "_I forgot to calculate emotional heartache into the test difficulty. I realized you might, perhaps, be feeling lonely. So in this next chamber, I'll provide you with a Companion Cube. Here is a picture. It is silent_," the AI went on, "_But entirely loyal. Incapable of thinking for itself. So you see, it's just like Peeta Mellark. Only bulletproof. The Companion Cube will also never lie to you in order to make you love it_."

In the hiss of the doors opening Katniss almost missed the next part, "_It may, however, threaten to stab you."_

Katniss plucked the cube from the air with the Portal Device's static electricity holder. As soon as she did a panel detached itself from the wall – a white one – and rested at an angle. Aha.

Katniss shot a yellow portal – the one connecting the funnel – and she and the cube fell briefly before landing in the funnel anew, this time taking them up and up, towards the doorway to the next part of the chamber. It took her away from and over the circle of turrets, and finally she landed on safe ground.

She caught a glimpse, from behind the angled panel, of a woman in a jumpsuit running past. Katniss smiled and landed. She proceeded through the doorway, holding the cube under her left arm.

GLaDOS' voice was chiding. "_Test Subject Twenty-Four! That is _not_ the proper way to hold a baby_!"

Katniss' experience with babies was terrifically outdated, but she adjusted her grip accordingly, and evaluated the test. Thermal Discouragement Beams, narrow courses, small portal-able targets…

"Oh. Oh, I _get_ it." Katniss glared at the nearest camera, and proceeded onto the test.

After she'd talked with Katniss – bit of an odd name, but who was Chell to judge? – Chell felt on fire. She had a purpose; what's more, she had _allies_. To look at another human watch them take in breaths, make eye contact, move their fingers – she'd missed it, deeply and without even realizing.

But she didn't want to try any of the tasks on her and Wheatley's itineraries – sabotaging the turret production, cutting off neurotoxin, and overwriting the security cameras – without a handheld portal device. And the only ways to win one of those was to either

Fight a living tribute for it,

Steal it off the body of a dead tribute, or

Hunt through the still-ruined sections of Aperture, those which had once been her own testing tracks.

The first two options were decidedly unsavory. For the first, _She_ might see, and Chell's greatest protection for now was her invisibility. Second, Chell doubted her strength in human-to-human combat, especially when the overseeing A.I. had no qualms about killing two humans in one blow.

And besides, since Chell had learned about the Games, their very idea was revolting to her. She wanted to avoid the actual fact of the Games for as long as possible.

To do her part, Katniss had agreed to continue testing and direct _Her_ attention away from wherever Chell might be. They would rendezvous when Katniss returned to the Relaxation Vault, hopefully after Chell's itinerary was complete, or when the plan was totally fouled up beyond recognition and disaster was imminent; whichever came first.

Bring Your Daughter to Work Day –

"Well!" Wheatley said, once Chell had run out of the Neurotoxin Development Facility, covering her nose and mouth and slamming the door behind her. "What do you want to do now?"

Chell thought, following his management rail back to the graffitied security alcove she'd made her home. "We need to keep gathering allies," she began slowly, once she'd detached him from his rail and set him down in a pile of lab coats. She turned on the small television screen, which showed a staticky broadcast of the Capitol-approved version of the Games. The volume was turned way low. It was surrounded by twenty-four screens, displaying, in various combinations, the test subjects hard at work.

"Brilliant! I'll check which ones are asleep—"

"No," her voice dimmed his electronic enthusiasm, his optic's face falling a little. "It was lucky that I got Katniss on my side. I think the others – some of them will be less trusting than she was. And they're _all_ dangerous. When I want to convince them, it may be best to have Katniss on hand."

"Oh. So, our, um, our 'gathering allies,' our 'the cavalry has arrived' bit, is that – um – put on hold?"

Chell eased off her long-fall boots. "I was thinking there's other kinds of allies. Wheatley, are there other Personality Spheres like you?"

"What? Oh, sure. Plenty of us, running around on auxiliary power, overseeing bits here and there – all quite independent, believe you me. But, honestly – more than a little, er, loopy."

"Loopy we can work with." In Test Chamber 12, the District 6 tributes were completing a masterpiece of a bear flying with the help of an umbrella, rendered in blue and orange gel. "Do you think you can recruit them?"

"R-re_cruit_ them?"

"I think you could do it."

"But – but – love, you don't understand. I have a bit of a way with words myself, could say a silver tongue, even – ha ha – that's a joke, you understand, considering I'm made of metal… but, where you've got this conviction is beyond me. Not conviction in a 'you're going to jail' kind of way, convicted in the 'I know what I'm doing' way. I mean, just until earlier today I was sure that if I took off from my rail, POOF! I would die. I have – I'm not brave, like you."

"You detached yourself from your rail," she reminded him. "You thought it would kill you. I would call that brave."

"You would?" his optic brightened up.

"Definition of the term."

Wheatley beamed – but then again, when a large part of your face consists of a light, it's hard to do otherwise. But he really _beamed_. "Really?"

Chell just looked at him, as if to ask him to doubt her again.

"Oh, man, man you have no idea what that means to me, Chell, _thank you!_"

"So will you do this for me?"

He paused before answering, and something about how his frame craned towards her gave her the sense that this falsely animate sphere craved something – was very lonely. She rested one of her linen-wrapped hands on his frame.

He gave a little start at the touch. "Well – yes, of course. I'll give it the ol' college try! Not that I've ever, heh, been to college… what kind of college would I even attend, Core College? Go Circuitboards! No? Well, whatever our mascot, I've got a team to recruit!"

In the Darkness, the Rails are Full of Starlight –

"So, yes, that's the gist of the general idea. You, me, a human associate, stopping the tests. All of this, obviously, top secret from _Her_, 100% confidential, sub rosa sub poena. So, mate, whaddya say?"

"Space."

"Yes… I do believe you've mentioned that before…"

"Wanna go to space. Wanna see space. Gotta go. Gotta go now."

"No, mate, listen, it's this plan, it's _not_ in space, it's right here, in the godforsaken underworld."

"Wanna see space. Big Dipper. Jupiter. Milky way. Oooohhh yesssspace."

"But you can't – no one will – mate, I tell you what, if you want to see space so badly—"

"Space space space SPACE!"

"You get the job of overriding the security cameras, and, and, um, pointing them _all _towards space! Out of here, up to the sky, fly me to the moon and all that jazz, hey, you can even add a nice soundtrack, how does that sound?"

"… All to space?"

"Yes. Every camera. Then we can all see space."

"See space. See space. YES, then we GO. TO. SPACE!"

"… Wow. You really aren't the brightest."

"Space loves me the way I am."

"Oh, buddy, look, I'm sorry –"

"Kevin."

"Oh, Kevin is it? Kevin, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I'm sorry."

"Stars will forgive us all."

"Can I count you in on this plan, as a yes?"

"_Space!_"

"Brilliant!"

Heart of Darkness –

In an entirely different, entirely dark passageway, riddled with the snarls of machinery and crushers, there was a glint of green. A monologue was in progress.

"And that virile safari wanderer carefully picks his way across the vicious, treacherous, obsidian rocks… keeping an ear out for the hiss of a snake… and then, just when he thought he couldn't wish any more fervently for a light, there was a—"

A blue light, a blue light appeared in front of him, and it said, "_Why_, for God's sake, would you go along inventing danger when there's no flipping need to?"

The green optic, in response, narrowed around its tiny rectangular pupil. "Wheatley."

"Rick."

"How's life, trying to tally up ten thousand vegetables and dreaming you have a purpose?"

"Same as usual… how's shirking responsibility and hallucinating lions and tigers and bears, _oh my_?"

"Fan-freaking-tastic. Whaddya want?"

For a minute the two just glared at each other. In the background behind Wheatley, a yellow optic blinked. "Ooh, it's dark out here. But not space-dark."

"Look," Wheatley broke the silence. "We don't like each other much. Not going to beat around the bush, not going to flatter you, I just do-not-fancy you, capish? But Rick, I can trust you _not_ to bail out or get distracted—"

"Ooooh is that a star? Is it a white dwarf star? A yellow giant? Is it a _supernova_?"

"_Right_?"

Rick nodded to Wheatley.

"And I need a team – a team for a real, true, bona fide, stick that in your pipe and smoke it, adventure. It's nothing that _She_ needs to know about – in fact, she mustn't, mustn't under any circumstances – and breaking the humans out."

"Aren't you supposed to be watching over the humans?"

"I am! And this, this is how. Have you noticed all the _testing_ that's going on, Rick?"

"No," the green-lit sphere spluttered.

"Well, _I_ have – can't exactly blame you if you're a wee bit out of the loop – but there are humans, they are testing, and I intend to make sure they are all perfectly safe and happy as can be. I'll show you _exactly_ how an adventure really begins."

The Chamber of Screaming Robots –

"Hello, Miss?"

Wheatley approached the core with caution. It was stationed only a panel's twitch away from the a senate chamber full of gun turrets. The Core was staring directly into that panel, its rose-pink optic with a flower petal-like design relaxed and calm.

"Hello, how are you today?"

"Do." The syllable was low and clear.

"Dough? You're – you're full of yeast and flour? Oh, I'm so sorry, that must be awful – or did you mean to say 'No'?"

"Re."

"Ray? Death ray? _Where?_"

"Mi."

"You? _You've_ got a death ray? Oh, splendid, would you mind using it for a good cause?"

"Fa."

"Now, no need to go sticking up your nose like that…"

"So."

"Yes. So. The crux of this mission, the linchpin, so to speak…"

"La."

"Huh? Oh – oh, that's what you're doing! You're singing!"

"Ti. Do."

"Well, that's—"

"Do. Ti. La. So. Fa. Me. Re. Do."

"If I had hands, you can bet I'd be applauding. _Lovely_ set of pipes you have there, really mellifluous. That was quite a treat, those eleven notes I was paying attention to." For the first time, the Opera Sphere turned to look at him.

"Now, if I can interest you in a certain venture…"

Now the sphere began to sing, "Many mumbling mice. Making merry music in the moonlight. Mighty nice."

"What, well good for them, but my idea was, there is a breakout in the works, and—"

"Many mumbling mice. Making merry music in the moonlight. Mighty nice." Her voice was slightly pitched higher this time.

"Please don't interrupt me, it's very rude— I've enlisted a human, and she's been enlisting other humans…"

"Many mumbling mice. Making merry music in the moonlight. Mighty nice."

"Do you understand me at all? We are trying to break out!"

"Many mumbling mice. Making merry music in the moonlight. Mighty nice."

"Is that, is that a metaphor or something? Are the mice the humans?"

"Many mumbling mice. Making merry music in the moonlight. Mighty nice."

"Your voice keeps getting higher, is that another metaphor? About, I dunno, _ascending to the surface_? Which we are _trying_ to do?"

"Many mumbling mice. Making merry music in the moonlight. Mighty nice."

"_For the love of god listen to me!_"

The Opera Sphere fell silent, staring at him.

"Yes, or no, are you interested in breaking the humans out, or not?"

Wheatley was a little impressed at himself. But when the Opera Sphere continued to stare at him with what could only be called "puppy-dog eyes," he began to feel a bit recalcitrant. "Please, I just don't want to waste either of our time."

At the other end of the corridor came a gleam of yellow. "Are there stars?"

"Stars," hummed the Opera sphere, "In your multitudes, scarce to be counted, filling the darkness, with order and light. We are the sentinels. Silent and sure. Keeping watch in the night, keeping watch in _the night_."

"Ah… I get it. Singing, that's what you do, singing, is it? Well – I like music. I'm pretty sure the humans we've got on our side do, too. So – are you with us? Breakout of the humans, top secret, dashing adventure worthy of any opera, I'm sure?"

The Opera Sphere fixed him with a gaze that he was sure, were it a human, would have been accompanied by a rustle of a mink stole and a brilliant smile. "I will never rest," it continued in a clear mezzo-alto voice, "Till then, this I swear! This I swear by – _the staaaaaaaars!_"

During the ensuing high note, Kevin felt the need to join in with "_SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!"_


	6. A Way Out

A/N: I know it's been a long time, but this has been a very stressful set of weeks for me. However, I do believe that I am over the worst of it. I'm sorry for the delay. Thanks for sticking around!

Thanks for every single review! And specifically, to **Penny For Sunshine**, I know that Wheatley is acting perhaps smarter than he should, but it just wouldn't do for the story if he was a _complete_ moron. And besides, I like to think that GLaDOS exaggerated his stupidity, because she does things like that.

By the way, the song that was featured (and desecrated) at the end of last chapter is 'Stars,' from_ Les Miserables_ (greatest musical ever, coming soon to a theater near you, this December!)

On to the chapter! Enjoy!

- Outside the Labyrinth Walls -

Haymitch had just hung up the phone from inside the Victor's lounge, ordering a plate of ribs for Katniss and a more modestly priced chicken dinner for Peeta (People were simply more sympathetic to an expectant mother, not to mention she was doing so much better than him at the tests. Sorry, Peeta) when the phone rang again.

He needed a drink.

He picked up the receiver and growled, "What?"

The operator's voice was cool and slightly disapproving. "It's a direct call from District Twelve. Victor's Village. Shall I transfer her over?"

After a pause, he answered, "Yes."

There was a short dial tone. "Hello? Mr. Abernathy?"

There was only one person in the Victor's Village who called him _Mr_. Abernathy. To Peeta and Katniss, he was just Haymitch. To Katniss' mother, who had known him in school, he was Mitch. That meant it was…

"Evening, _Miss_ Primrose. What can I do you for?"

Prim had always seemed afraid of him, or maybe just shy, but he'd seen how well she worked when she had a patient on hand. Her hands simply _flew_. She could be precise, and subtle. But – did she realize that the line was bugged?

"I just wanted to check in about Katniss."

"Well." He looked at her on the screen, currently trying a testing puzzle in a new and promising direction. "She's doing fine, as I'm sure you can see."

"I know, but I'm worried for her."

He nodded slowly. "I know."

"I wish I could order something for her. But the Games have been going on for days now; I'm sure I can't afford anything." If Primrose just wanted to talk about how frightened she was, or her frustrations, there were plenty of people who would lend her a sympathetic ear. But for her to risk a call for the Capitol, she must have wanted to send him a message.

"You'd be surprised. The Gamemakers are offering food packages for a much lower price this season." Anything that they said _would be_ heard by Snow. Haymitch found himself thinking, please please _please_ don't mess this up, Miss Primrose.

"I'm sure you're doing a great job, Mr. Abernathy. Did you see when she was asleep?"

Yes, he'd seen the footage of Katniss sleeping. He'd noticed the moment when the tape skipped and the footage began to loop. He'd prayed that he'd been the only one in Panem who'd noticed—

"Yes, I did."

"It looked like she was having some pretty bad dreams." Every word was carefully picked. Precise and subtle. "I was wondering, could you send something to help the nightmares? Stop them, I mean."

So she knew. She knew the footage was looped, that Katniss must have woken up and done _something_ that the cameras didn't see. And she must have outsmarted the arena, because there was nothing that the cameras of the Aperture Science Laboratory would _choose_ to exclude.

"Of course I can do that. Was thinking of it, myself."

"I just want her to be in the best shape possible."

"So do I, sugarplum." Oh, she was a smart one. He decided to give both of the Everdeen girls his stamp of approval. Not that he had a stamp.

"I recommend chamomile tea. We have it at home, and she always sleeps better with it. Well, I'll let you go. You must be very busy."

He grunted in response.

"Thank you, Mr. Abernathy."

"You're welcome, Miss Primrose."

Hung up. Good. That went well. He beckoned an Avox for a bottle of white liquor, but set it just out of arm's reach, waiting for him after he placed his order.

- In Dark and Cold –

Even in the prisons of the Capitol, the television screens blared on, broadcasting the Hunger Games.

Meet Portia. Portia was the stylist for Peeta Mellark, and partner and student to Cinna. 'Student' was a funny term, considering she'd worked as a prep artist for longer than Cinna had. Yet he was the master. Yes. It was very funny.

She wiped her eyes with her hands, which were crusted in grime and dirt. In her tiny prison cell, the only source of light was the TV screen, eleven inches across, airing the Games.

Cinna was dead; his tortured screams from down the hall had finally stopped. Portia was glad, glad that he was out of pain, but all of her other thoughts were bowled over with grief, unable to follow each other, at the idea of Cinna's light and genius snuffed out. He'd been the light of District Twelve, the light of the rebellion, which he'd told Portia about, and introduced her to. He was her sole link to the rebellion, the main reason why she was imprisoned, and he had died hours ago.

The laws regarding Hunger Games viewing still applied, but she couldn't raise her eyes to the screen. She stared at her hands and wrists. Ironically, she'd tattooed them years ago with manacles of vines and thread, with a keyhole on her left wrist and a key rising onto the skin of her right hand.

She heard Caesar Flickerman say, "And now let's cut to Peeta Mellark, who has just _soared_ through the last three tests, and I'm not just saying that because he's been leaping off of heights up to two hundred meters in the air, folks –"

Portia found the strength to raise her head. She watched Peeta Mellark, and later, Katniss Everdeen, for Cinna, and for herself.

Katniss completed that day's tests and arrived in her Relaxation Vault. A sponsor-bought dinner awaited her.

Portia was more fascinated by Katniss unwrapping the dinner than she had during the hour she'd watched Peeta leap through the vast underground vault. Portia tried to relish the feeling of hunger, to tell herself that this was a trial, a spiritual connection to her tributes, but she couldn't stomach her own lies.

But then she noticed something – her eye for detail was naturally good and honed to excellence by Cinna. When Katniss opened the thermos and sniffed its contents, her nose wrinkled a little.

Katniss did not turn her nose up at good food – in fact, even now, she seemed more surprised than disgusted – but Portia knew there were a few foods Katniss didn't like. Melons. Citrus fruits. Egg drop soup. And coffee.

Coffee?

It had been given as a sponsor gift before – plenty of times – it was fairly affordable. But Katniss was about to go to sleep for six hours. Why would Haymitch give her coffee?

And Portia could almost hear Cinna's voice by her ear: _Because she and Haymitch have a plan. Watch out, because something is about to explode_.

And for the first time since the Games began, Portia smiled.

- Test Complete -

"Look_ at the state of your _child!"

At the end of that day's tests, the little Companion Cube was pockmarked and pitted with burns, blows, and dents. For the entire testing arena, the Artificial Intelligence had not let go once of the idiotic conceit that the Cube was a baby.

"_The test results are clear. You, Test Subject 24, would make a horrible mother. A horrible mother. A wolf-muttation with your DNA would make a better mother than you. How sad, that fecundity should be granted to the least deserving. Oh, well. At least physically you promise to be the _picture_ of prenatal health. But be careful not to grow too fast before I can assemble a special Maternity Care Relaxation Vault. Just for you. Extra-large."_

Katniss entered the Relaxation Vault with a sigh of relief, before the A.I. added, "_What I mean is, try not to get too fat before I wake you up. Oh, look, another packet of food from the surface._" There was a clatter as a silver-wrapped package arrived in the Aperture Science Nourishment Delivery Vault. "_It must be nice, having fans who cater to your every craving. Now I'm off to clean up the wing of glass. The District One test subjects have been ogling their own reflections. But it's only part and parcel of all the cleanup that I get to do. _By myself_. Sweet dreams._"

Relishing the silence, Katniss took off her boots. Next she took the food packets to the bed and unwrapped them. She reflected that, while a psychotic artificial intelligence calling her fat was by no means the most terrifying or heartbreaking thing that had ever happened to her, it certainly ranked among the _strangest_.

Dinner was still warm. There was a foil-wrapped packet of ribs, accompanied by a fist-sized roll of pretzel bread. There was also a tiny capsule with two pills on it. Katniss read the label to find that they were prenatal vitamins.

So plenty of people were supporting her and her "baby." Good to know. And she saved the gift that was marked with "District Twelve" for the very last. It was a thermos, its inside hot and dark. She sniffed it. It was coffee, the jitters-inducing drink that Cinna and Portia practically lived off of.

So this was another message from Haymitch. He knew, somehow, that she hadn't slept through all of last night, and he was giving her a way to help stay awake.

But it wouldn't do to let the rest of Panem know. So she decided to act like it was a nightcap: warm milk from Prim's goat, maybe. She pretended to take a few sips and then set the thermos by her bedside.

She settled in, remembering to hum her fake lullaby, and went quickly to sleep.

And when the shifting of a panel in the ceiling woke her up, she nodded to Chell, put on her long-fall boots, picked up her portal gun, and grabbed the thermos.

The warm coffee helped draw her into full awakeness as she climbed out of the vault and into the crawlspace. Chell led the way to a nest of labcoats and cans of food, a small den where a few flickering televisions kept tabs on test chambers.

"What's that you've got?" Chell asked.

"Coffee. Never had it before. It's not bad." Katniss got the strange but pleasant feeling that Haymitch would have approved entirely of her actions.

"Can I try some?" asked a male voice behind her. Katniss jumped, and started again when she turned around to see a blue and beaming metal ball chirp "Hello!" at her.

Around the blue light a bouquet of other beams swirled towards her – pink, green, yellow, purple – all chattering at her. Katniss backed up, and shirked when Chell laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Guys, calm down," Chell told the optics. "Katniss, these are the personality cores. They were supposed to help with day-to-day running of Aperture, but, well, now they're with us. Meet Wheatley—"

"Hello! Lovely to meet you."

"—Rick—"

"Howdy, pretty lady…"

"—Kevin—"

"Are you from space? You look starstruck. _Stars_?"

"—Craig—"

"Fact: '_Vivez longue et prosperez_' was the greeting in the Picard region of France until…"

"—And we think she likes to be called Mimi."

"_Sì, mi chiamano Mimì._"

"They're helping us. They won't hurt you."

"Can't, as a matter of fact," Wheatley nodded cheerfully – an impressive feat for one with no head or neck. "See any limbs or teeth here? No-sir-ee-bob."

Katniss studied Wheatley closely but couldn't see anything immediately lethal about him. And besides, he wasn't meant to be part of the Game, so it was likely he wasn't _supposed_ to be immediately deadly. So she followed Chell's example, sitting among the cluster of lab coats, and watching the screens.

"So, what can you tell me about the other test subjects?" Chell asked her.

"Where's number twenty-three – _ah_. There he is."

"There who is?"

"Peeta." Katniss pointed. "He's alive. Good."

"I take it you know him?"

Katniss nodded. Chell would have left it there, but Wheatley piped up, "Oooh, is he your boyfriend?"

Katniss turned around. "He is not – except, he kind of is – He's my district partner. He's saved my life too many times. I just want to get him out of here." She turned back to Peeta's screen, where he was skidding back and forth, testing the propulsion gel with a big grin on his face.

"Maybe we can get you both out of here," Chell said evenly. She didn't share Peeta's testing score (very low), arguing to herself that with herself working on the plan it would even out.

"No. Get Peeta out first."

Chell stared. "Okay, you wouldn't say that if he wasn't your boyfriend."

"It's not that he's my boyfriend! But you don't know him – if you knew him, you'd want him out of the arena first, too."

Chell snorted. "Wanna bet?"

"He volunteered to enter the Games, just to protect _me_. I have to pay him back for it. I mean, I entered this arena knowing I was going to die." Chell frowned, but Katniss went on. "The Capitol wants me dead."

"The Capitol? Which Capitol?" Wheatley asked. "Baltimore? Washington D.C.? Paris? I always wanted to go to Paris…" at the same time that Craig began to say "London is the capitol of Paris, and Paris is the capitol of Rome…"

"Haven't you noticed?" Chell gestured to silence the cores. "In here, the Capitol has no power. Only _she_ does."

"That's not much better."

"No, it's not. But she doesn't want you specifically dead. And I've beaten her, before, here, in her own turf."

All four of the cores gasped. Wheatley spluttered, "You did _what_?"

"But," Katniss countered, "outside of here, it's the Capitol. The Capitol controls us all. So we escape, and President Snow finds us and executes us on live TV. That's one delightful option he might take. I can't trust that things will work out, ever, at any point – I just want Peeta to live."

"With that kind of thinking," Chell began, but Craig interrupted her.

"President Snow?"

The women – and the other three cores – turned. The purple-eyed sphere seemed somewhat bewildered by all of the attention. He cleared his throat slightly. "Fact: President Snow entered this facility."

Chell and Katniss glanced at each other. Chell turned to face Craig. "Is that _really_ a fact?"

Craig's optic dilated. "F—f—um," he stammered.

"You've told me about cheese cities, dinosaur races, and tap dancing alchemists. Is what you've just told us true, or is it one of your bogus facts?"

"If it's bogus, I'm kicking you off the team," Wheatley added sternly – or in what he hoped was a stern manner.

"Was President Snow here?" Katniss snapped.

The core started. He made a whirring noise. For a moment Chell was afraid he was going to short-circuit entirely, but then he said "_Accessing Memory Files_." Then his voice changed and was not his own. A soft, tremulous mezzo voice asked, "Mr… Mr. Johnson?"

And then his voice changed again, and Katniss shuddered at the sound. "Yes, that's me. Good morning, GLaDOS."

"That's him," Katniss mouthed. "That's him."

Next followed an alarming series of sounds – static, a shriek, and Snow's voice was barely audible, but he sounded calm and in control. "You will listen to me, even though I am not Cave Johnson. It has been three hundred years since the last human stepped outside of Aperture Science…"

"Three hundred?" Chell repeated, then she covered her mouth with her fingers, as though to reprimand herself for speaking. The purple sphere continued to speak in the alternating voices of GLaDOS and President Snow. Snow laid out the offer of former Victors as test subjects, and GLaDOS agreed, all but cooing with him as he laid out his plan. There was an argument over how much harm she was allowed to actually do to Test Subjects and her turning over the bodies of the dead.

But then Snow played his trump card. "Do you even know how you and I are able to talk, GLaDOS? Do you see this here? Aim a camera right here, at what's about six feet behind me and two feet to my left."

Now Craig's optic whirred and clicked, as though he had photographed what he saw himself. He spoke in his own voice. "_Fact_: All Aperture Science Personality Cores are one hundred percent compatible with all Aperture Science viewing devices. Also compatible with leggy, statuesque brunettes fond of secretary classes and—"

"We get it," Katniss said, but Chell had already picked him up and placed him by one of the televisions. Thanks to Wheatley's advice (more enthusiastic than precise) the two women found a connecting cord to plug Craig into a television. And once they did, the core made another whirring and humming noise, and the screen of the television filled with purple.

The image that came up was warped, viewed through a convex lens. But they could all make out, between a tangle of fallen wires and potato bushes, a man standing in the main room of GLaDOS' computer, a wreckage site. He was gesturing behind him to a massive black box, which was taller than he was, and shaped vaguely like a square. Wires connected it to the main hub. Some parts were glowing, but the greater part lay dormant.

Craig picked up Snow's voice: "This is a power generator, specially modified to work with Aperture Science technology. It won't match the power of the facility at its prime - what could? But it can shut you down. I don't want to get a call from a single district saying that they didn't get the body of their tribute back. That's part of the Treaty of Treason, which every citizen can look at in their town hall-"

"Really?" Katniss asked.

"The bodies are returned to the districts, to dispose of as they please. And these are Victors' bodies we are talking about here - I will have an uprising on my hand without the bodies brought home, and I do not want that."

"Of course you don't," Katniss muttered.

"_You don't have the right_," GLaDOS' chassis was anxiously swinging back and forth, twisting what was left of itself. "_This is my facility, my science, my_ tests -"

_"_And my power," Snow finished. "Run the tests by my rules, or don't run them at all. Just go back to suspension for another three hundred years-"

_"No,"_ GLaDOS said. "_We have a deal_."

From there the two of them continued to talk, but though Craig loyally continued to show the conversation, Katniss was no longer fully listening. She was looking extremely thoughtful. "I think," she said, "we have our way out."_  
><em>


	7. Risk of Harm

**A/N**: I'm very sorry that this chapter is so late. It's been a big three weeks. Rest assured this chapter contains one of my favorite scenes for the story so far. The character involved is one that I always feel sorry didn't get more development in canon.

I'm honored by the amount of attention, faves, and reviews this story is getting. Thank you, each and every one of you!

- Rat's Den –

The chamber where Chell had set up shop was dim and dilapidated. Unidentifiable mold snuck its way up from the corners, and all of the lab equipment originally there had long malfunctioned. The only feature distinguishing it from five dozen other such cubicles all around, in every direction, was that its walls were covered with graffiti – murals in blue and orange, of portal-gun toting figures receiving thumbs-up or thumbs-down, manikins of lines that might have been dancing or screaming. Katniss couldn't quite see why Chell was drawn to these images of chaos, but she found them easy enough to ignore. They had a task to do.

The two women worked by the light of Wheatley's flashbeam, with the help of a charred bit of wood, a large detached ceiling panel to make a map of the facility. In the center was the circular room where the tributes had first entered the arena. Various testing tracks were marked with question marks, in faint lines.

"You know, she _can_ rearrange the facility, almost from scratch," Wheatley remarked, nodding his orb and making the shadows bounce over the entire room. "You've got quite a labyrinth to solve."

"Don't _tell_ me that," Katniss answered, her fist pressed close to her mouth. "We need something to go off of, if it's all just random, we're… doomed."

"But I don't think she does." Chell spoke, as usual, softly and almost to herself. "All these tests to monitor at once takes up a lot of her attention – and even _she_ can be exhausted."

"But has she ever really reused the same testing—" Katniss spoke over the television, but stopped abruptly.

GLaDOS' voice came from one of the small televisions: "_Test Subject 23, I have some intriguing trivia about the test you are about to attempt."_

Katniss turned around, scanning the televisions until she saw the one that contained her blue-eyed, blond-haired District partner. Chell glanced up, then returned to the map.

On the left-hand screen, Peeta crept cautiously forward, portal gun close to his heart. Meanwhile, _she_ said, "_This testing chamber was previously employed by Test Subject 24, Katniss Everdeen. In fact, she _just_ left_. _If you'd solved that last test a little sooner…_"

"Coo, now _that's_ a twist," Wheatley commented.

"_Well, maybe she had a premonition that you were on your way. Call it a mother's instinct._"

"Ya call _that_ a twist? If she hasn't filled it with bloodthirsty bats and man-eating piranhas, ain't no twist in my book…" Rick narrowed his optic in a surly sort of way.

"Rick," Chell did not look up from the map. "You are wasted on this arena."

"_She _did_ finish her tests with unusual alacrity_…"

"I am _honored_ to hear that, pretty lady…" Rick tipped his optic suavely, like it was a ten-gallon cowboy hat, but his suaveness was overrun by Wheatley crying, "What do you mean, he's wasted? Aren't I wasted, too? Aren't I?"

"Will all of you shut up?" Katniss barked at them.

On screen, Peeta took his time walking into the arena, his face moody, pensive. At one point he reached over and gently touched the wall, and looked up. "Katniss, you were here?"

His voice was so plaintive, so _sweet_, Katniss knew that if it were real or plotted, or part of the realm of both where Peeta lived – that he had all of Panem hooked, right now. "And you survived," he went on, "like the brave – marvelous girl that you are. My Girl on Fire."

GLaDOS' voice was flat.. "Fact: Newton was daydreaming just as you are now about his lost Lenore when an apple struck him precisely on his cranium… and killed him."

Craig emitted an admiring "_oooh_" and they all heard a brief whirring and clicking as he filed that new fact away.

"Great minds of science cannot afford sentimentality. Mediocre minds less so."

Peeta took the hint. His fingers flattened to his lips briefly, before he hoisted his gun in businesslike fashion. He moved spritely down the testing track.

In the dim, ratty chamber, Katniss turned to Chell. "You see? See why we have to get him out?"

Chell's face was impassive. "I heard a lot of praise for you."

"No, that's an act –"

"Sounded pretty sincere to _me_…"

"Shut up, Wheatley – that's Peeta, he's so good at saying the right things, playing to the camera. Do you know what I mean?"

"So he's good at P.R." Chell sat back on her heels. "We are at war. Only an idiot thinks you can win a war with P.R."

"Hey… why shouldn't you be able to?"

Chell closed her eyes. "No offense, Wheatley."

"Why should I be offended?"

Katniss made a motion in Wheatley's direction, like she was batting the core away. "He can take what we're doing and make it into something grand, great television –"

"She will kill us."

"Not if Snow doesn't let her! I bet you that what the audience is _starved _for is for me and Peeta to meet up. Ratings will spike. That's why she pulled that trick of 'Katniss was just here' – and that _was_ one of my old testing tracks. I recognized it. It would make a great show if we could plot it right—Peeta can plot it right—"

"Let Peeta do his thing, pining after you, but _we_ have to remain unseen." Her voice remained flat, as though Katniss' suggestion was barely even worth considering.

"He'll be an important ally – he'll be helpful."

"If we're going to bring on another ally—" Chell reached forward and tapped the testing tracks that they hypothesized belonged to tributes Five, Sixteen, Six, and Seven – Finnick, Cecelia, Wiress, and Johanna – "let's pick one that's actually competent."

"Johanna? Really? What about an ally that won't stab us in the back?"

"I said _if_ in the first place."

"What if I want to be sure that Peeta's safe, out of her clutches, like we are?"

Chell stood up and looked over to Craig. "How long until Katniss is scheduled to wake up?"

"Fact: Katniss Everdeen is scheduled to be woken up in two hours."

"There you go. Thanks." She turned back to Katniss. "We're already almost out of your grace period. Taking him on is too risky – once she notices, nowhere in the facility will be safe for us." She began to pick at the linen wrappings on her hands.

"He's not safe while testing!"

"_Grow up!_" Chell seemed to draw herself back, having been louder than she really intended. "No one is safe in here, all right? That's why we're stopping the tests."

"Which is more important to you? Rescuing the tributes or stopping the Game?"

"Stopping the test. Isn't that what we set out to do?"

Katniss' mouth fell open. She pressed her hands to her temples. She said, "Let me make something clear," at the same time that Chell said, "Maybe we should clear up our objectives."

Katniss held up her hands. "I owe Peeta my life. If you have any idea what it means to owe that kind of a debt, you'd… you'd know. I'd rather Peeta gets out of here than me. That's all. Now, you were saying?"

Chell ran a hand through her hair, loosening a few strands of grey. "It's not 'you-or-me' anymore, it's not 'let's-get-him-out-and-sacrifice-ourselves.' We have the knowledge to save all of the test subjects now, and it's ridiculous to lose our only chance in order to be sort-of sure of saving _one_."

"We can't be sure of any of the other tributes—"

"Katniss—"

"When does the Game end? Really? Any test subject other than Peeta will probably stab me in the back, just because the Game only ends when –"

"Stab _us_ in the back, Katniss. You're not alone."

Katniss looked down, and Chell was struck, not for the first time, by the resemblance between them. "I've always been alone." She said, louder, "Then let's find GLaDOS and – how should we stop her? Just try to hold her generator hostage, until she agrees to let the tributes go?"

"There must be something… something in this rotted arena that we can use against her… something that will _harm_ her."

In the silence of Chell's pause, Mimi began to croon: "_Otto__, otto, __calici,__calici._.."

"That doesn't even _mean_ anything—" Katniss turned to address the pink sphere, then stopped. "Chell. Will you look where Mimi is looking?"  
>Chell glanced up once, then down, then up again. Mimi had turned to face Wheatley directly, gazing at him like he was the Juliet to her Romeo, the object of her jaunty arrietta.<p>

"_Ask and you shall receive... __Tutto ciò che__cercate, è qui__, qui_..."

"What?" Wheatley was beginning to fidget uncomfortably. "What are you all looking at? I – I've got no ideas, not this time! I'm just a – just a little sphere, what can I do?"

"_All that you seek is right here_," Mimi finished.

GLaDOS –

Just as Test Subject Five was fully phased into his Relaxation Center, the Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System moved to awaken Test Subject 24 from her Relaxation Center (Maternity Amendment).

Except that Test Subject 24 was absent.

In the space of about a minute, GlaDOS considered her options and played each of them out to their fullest conclusion, both logical and all sorts of illogical.

Spread the information generally that Test Subject 24 was missing. Pro: Good for ratings. Con: President Snow would be displeased. Con: Other test subjects would get the idea that they, too, could simply "go missing."

Conclusion: Keep the vanishing act of Katniss Everdeen to oneself.

Careful forensic study of the Relaxation Vault yielded an extremely important fact of the escape (no, not escape, escape implied she was out of GLaDOS' reach, she had merely eluded her a while), and that was that Test Subject 24 had had help. Someone had lifted the ceiling panel from the outside. Someone had looped the security footage. Someone was helping Test Subject 24 navigate even now.

Sending all of her sensors to pry every inch of the Facility, GLaDOS couldn't help but remember a certain prior _test subject_ – her very wires shivered with loathing to think of her – who would be just the sort to attempt this infarction of –

Aha. There. Running past Test Chamber Sixteen, (testing in progress) – two pairs of footsteps.

Yes. All possible explanations for the two sets of footsteps were invented, analyzed, expunged, and collapsed, to make way for one intractable idea:

Katniss Everdeen was being helped by _the monster_.

Test Chamber Sixteen –

Cecelia had a gift for fighting. It wasn't bragging to say so. Some people have a gift for music, or for cooking, their memories attuned to the fussiness of eggs and ovens, a talent that lights up the minute a whisk is placed in their hands.

And Cecelia had a gift for fighting.

The Artificial Intelligence in charge of this facility knew it, of course. And the AI had made a series of test chambers especially attuned to the Portal Device's capabilities in combat. Mostly, this meant redirecting Thermal Discouragement Beams, missiles, and gun turrets towards the combat robot with portals. It was not _exactly_ Cecelia's style – she preferred a good, hefty weapon in her hands, to engage in close quarters – but the thrilling adrenaline rush was close enough.

The AI was kind enough to not send Cecelia to combat robot after combat robot. It would be a combat robot, a "typical" testing chamber, and then another combat robot, cannier and fiercer than the one before it.

So Cecelia had some time to think as she took the elevator to Test Chamber 16H. Her fighting gift was an oddity in her life, which fit otherwise so nicely into the domestic sphere that District 8 expected of its women. Cecelia (and here she thought she might be bragging, even to herself as she thought it) was gentle, and patient, and trusting. She hated to see a child or animal treated unfairly. She loved people easily. Becoming a wife and mother had felt like completion.

But _fighting_, surviving during her Games, was a part of her past she could never leave behind, nor did she really want to. She liked to think that the two roles were not as dissimilar as they seemed. She liked to think her role in the Rebellion allowed her to fulfill both at the same time.

She stepped out of the elevator and knew, at once, something was wrong.

The presence of the A.I. was heightened. The panels in the walls were detaching themselves and re-aligning in waves, as if to allow visions of what was behind them.

"_Test Subject 16, do not be alarmed by the apparent heightened security measures in this test chamber. They are a hallucination brought on by overexposure to the Aperture Science Supercolliding Superbutton_."

Really, now. Cecelia had tried hallucinogens, in the early years after her victory. They tended to be oodles more fun.

Something was upsetting the A.I., which meant something was wrong in the arena, which meant that there were _possibilities_ afoot.

Cecelia was just ascending the stairs when an apparent auditory hallucination joined the visual ones: a light _tap tap tap_ _tap_, as if there were feet, at least two pairs, running on a metal grill.

She stopped to listen.

The shuddering panels rippled towards her – she readied her gun and fired, right when the panels were open beside her, a turquoise portal.

She heard the footsteps come to a halt. The wall beside her closed; she jogged ahead to the first portal-able surface she could find, a patch of wall just within the door to the test chamber, right in the blind spot of the security camera.

Indigo portal. When the indigo sparks cleared, there were two faces looking out at her from a darkened metal gangplank, sweetly welcome human faces. One she knew: Katniss Everdeen, whom Cecelia had always wanted to get to know. The other was a strange woman, eyes alert and mistrusting.

"Cecelia?" Katniss asked.

"I guess you're the security breach she's worried about," she said by way of answer.

"She knows we're here…" the woman behind Katniss muttered.

"What are you trying to do?" Cecelia asked.

Katniss looked to one side. "A breakout."

Cecelia smiled. "You'd do your mentor proud."

Katniss had enough decency to look surprised at that remark. "Come with—" She barely said when the red lights begin to flash on both sides of the portal.

"She's found us," said the strange woman, clutching a pure-white portal device to her heart. Ceceila glanced at the open door of the test chamber. Inside was probably another combat robot, something so large that the floor shook with every step. She looked at her handheld portal device – grey on black, with "District 8" printed on it in white.

Then she smiled at Katniss and her companion, one of her sweetest, kindest smiles. "Don't worry, Mockingjay. I've got this."

She gave a little wave as she started to run through the door to the testing chamber.

She pressed the small button to cancel both portals and felt the corresponding shudder. Then she took an appraising look at the towering combat robot ahead of her. She readjusted her grip on the Portal Device and gave a hollering battle cry.

Portal on the ceiling, portal on the floor before her. Cecelia ran forward, dropped right above the robot, and pummeled it _hard_ with the Portal Device.

She slid from the robot's back to the floor, avoiding the shower of sparks. Swinging it like a two-handed club, she brought it down again and again, marveling at how simple it was, how basic.

The A.I.'s voice was thunderously loud in the test chamber. "_Stop, what are you doing, Test Subject 16, what are you doing? Stop, STOP, that is incorrect usage of the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, stop, Cecelia Lyons, STOP!_"

In all of the other test chambers the same roaring message was heard. Behind the walls of Test Chamber 16H, Chell and Katniss ran for their lives.

GLaDOS started to apply her own will to the test robot, pumping it replete with her rage. But Cecelia predicted that, and let herself be beaten, whammed, and thrown to the wall. Now _this_ was more like what a Hunger Game was meant to be. She backed off and used the Portal Device – whose workings were just on this side of functioning – to open a turquoise portal on the ceiling, indigo one on the floor, right below the robot. Then she watched the robot – just a bit too big for the portals – fall through, again and again, each time losing some more of himself until he was nothing but a torso, falling endlessly through the air.

Cecelia laughed.

The hands on the floor twitched, and the red eye glared, but it could not reassemble itself with its torso permanently falling.

Fine by the test subject. She was battered and bloody, but she could stand. And she did, throwing the sparking Portal Device to the ground like it was trash.

The auditory "hallucinations" had stopped, no more sound from behind the walls. With friendly odds Katniss and the stranger were safe now.

The Artificial Intelligence was lecturing Cecelia like she was a child. "_The Aperture Science Handheld Portal device is _not_ a toy, it is _not_ a weapon, how _dare _you insult the noble name of Science, you animal, you _brute_, you _MONSTER_—"_

And Cecelia wasn't listening. She knew that somewhere, District 8 was watching, and her husband, and her children.

Smiling, she walked tall and proud – with a slight limp – through the Emancipation Grid – right into the red beams of the friendly, childlike turrets.

Hidden in the Walls -

Hidden in the walls, in the darkness of the A.I.'s rage being directed somewhere else, Chell and Katniss flinched at the sound of the cannon.

Chell asked quietly, "Who _was_ that?"

Katniss stared down the gangplank, the way she came. "She was a… a Victor. Other than that, I really don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know? That woman just – she died to give us time to escape, but you don't know her?"

"I never had time for that – to get to know all of the Victors. I just didn't. And I didn't ask her to—I have no idea why she would."

Chell started to move down the catwalk, the leader, as usual. "Your Districts are really isolated, aren't they?"

"She had a reason to win," Katniss continued, as if to herself, "She had a family… children… there are riots in District Eight. There's an uprising – it needed to be quelled—"

Chell glanced back at her. "What did she call you?"

"Mockingjay," Katniss said slowly. In response to Chell's questioning look, she said, "They're a kind of a bird – they repeat back what you say to them. They were in the last arena – when Rue died, they picked up her song. They sang—" she stopped, leaning against the railing, her eyes fixed on some point a few feet away and a thousand years ago.

Chell tugged on her sleeve. Katniss shook herself. "There's something going on, here. I don't know what, but it's bigger than me – it's bigger than the both of us." She turned to face Chell. "You were right – we're not alone."

Chell waited for her to say the next, essential phrase. She waited until Katniss had started to walk again down the catwalk, and then stride, almost jogging in the high-heeled boots. "Which is why this Game is going to end, before there are any more deaths."


	8. Dampen Intelligence

A/N: I have pilfered the idea of what Wheatley's true purpose in regards to GLaDOS is (as well as a few other details) from waffleguppies' incredible, _incredible_ fanfiction entitled "Blue Sky." Do yourself a favor and make that your summer reading. And to my Australian readers, make "Blue Sky" your winter holidays reading.

I'm so sorry about the lateness of this update - please accept my apologies.

- Do Androids Argue About the God in the Machine? -

The two women wormed their way closer and closer to the center of the hive, to _her _lair. And some ways above them, the five spheres journeyed on a parallel course, making a little music. Mimi of course hummed, and Kevin kept up his litany with the studiousness of a monk.

Wheatley and Rick shared one rail, and neither of them were very pleased with this situation.

"Hey." Rick buzzed.

Wheatley didn't turn around.

"Hey. Hey. Hey, Wheat Thin."

Wheatley paused to turn and glare at Rick. "What?"

"What kind of a chase are you leading these pretty ladies on?" Rick's optic, the green of high summer, was narrowed.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Wheatley answered, perhaps a bit more pompously than he intended.

"Oh, you ain't _that_ dumb. All I know is, headin' our way with _you_ in the lead spells out 'Disaster' with a double-D. Pure, plain, and simple."

"When did you learn how to spell?"

"when did _you_ learn how to act like sumthin' _not_ resemblin' a moron?"

"I am _not_ a moron!" Wheatley ground to a halt on his rail. His optic flared with anger.

"Oh, come on. I know what the 'I.D.' is short for, Wheat Thin."

"And what's with the nickname? Or have you confused 'skinny' with 'spherical'? Oh, good one," he added to himself. "Alliteration in the insults… good effect."

"You and I may look alike," Rick edged nearer. Soon their handles would bump. "But inside, you're nothing like me."

"Glad to hear it."

In the background, Mimi began to chirp the percussive notes for "The Jets and the Sharks," from _West Side Story_, but no one was around to appreciate the Leonard Bernstein reference.

"Rick here's a man's man, virile n' tough. If this body were capable of growin' hair, you know I'd be waxing every day just to keep the wires functioning."

"Charming. Thank you for that _exquisite_ mental picture…" Wheatley rolled his entire frame. "Pardon me, I have a sudden need for bleach…"

"But as for _you_, Wheat Thin, you're flimsy. You got a thin _soul_. Hardly anything _to _ye – certainly not in the brains department."

"You're one to talk."

"I'm sure you've got long toothpick legs, good for runnin' and hidin' –"

"_You_ really—"

"And I bet you've got four eyes, and a sappy smile, and pasty skin you'll do anything to save."

"Shut up, you don't even know me –"

"I know, Wheat Thin, that you're about to send them ladies into a panther den, and douse 'em in steak sauce first, and never even tell them."

"You – metaphor-killing—"

"'Cause that's the sort of lily-livered moron that you are."

"YOU!" Wheatley expressed that one syllable in a staticky shriek. "You have no idea who I am and in fact I am going to go right now down to Chell and her friend and tell them what I can do _right now_."

And he was off, careening down the rail so fast he sent up sparks.

Ahead of them a whistle sounded. Wheatley, spotting a place to segue, switched onto a lower rail, going so fast that the other cores were left behind. Again and again. He found the source of the whistle (a patch of light in the floor of darkness). He dove to emerge into one of those horribly lit, fluorescent spaces that the humans could just barely abide.

But he was too late, somehow ('_of course_,' he thought.) The only one of the two gels standing by was the one in the red and black jumpsuit. She glanced up at him and nodded.

He approached, his connector starting to squeal ominously on the rust. "Where's Chell?"

"Went on ahead. Said she knew the area but wanted to check for missiles. Craig went with her."

"Craig?" Wheatley felt his circuits buzz over with jealousy against the purple-eyed sphere, why that little…

Test Subject 24 sat on the floor, stretching her legs out in front of her, and sighed. Wheatley paused in assembling suitably nasty adjectives for Craig as he noticed how very _weary_ she looked. And sad. His own vitriol fizzled its way out of existence.

He fidgeted. He was getting better at reading humans' faces – but that wasn't always a good thing, was it? It was his job to take care of humans, right? He fidgeted. And didn't well-cared for humans have a smile on their faces?

So, to try and waken a smile, he leapt on the first idea that came to mind: "So, this Peeta fellow you seem so keen on – what's he like?"

'_Terrible idea_,' he thought at once. '_Bloody tactless terrible idea…_'

"You'd like him," she said at once.

"Oh?"

She nodded. "Everyone likes him."

"Do… do you think he'd like… me?"

She thought about it a while, and then nodded again, more slowly this time. "Peeta is able to find something good about almost anyone. I'm sure he'd like you right away."

"What's he like?" Wheatley was already sketching out Peeta as a hypothetical friend in his mind – a much _better _friend than Rick, obviously – what color would his optic be?

"He's a baker's son. He's always generous with his bread. Even you couldn't walk past his shop, smell his almond cookies, and not feel hungry. And he's _good_ – selfless, giving, brave atll at once."

Wheatley tilted his optic. "You sound pretty fond of him."

"I am." Katniss told him the story of how Peeta had thrown bread to her, saving her life, even when he knew he would be whipped for it.

"Wow. And to him, that's just normal?"

"Yes! That's just who he is. And I want him safe… and happy, more than almost anything. Not because it does me any good, just because… of him. It would set me at ease." She fell silent, then added, "Funny, isn't it?"

Wheatley figured that waiting a bit would be a good idea, so he waited before asking, "So, is that… love? I mean, you said he's not your boyfriend…"

"But I do love him. Like I love Gale, and my mother, and Prim, and Rue. That's a part of love."

A long silence stretched out between them. Footfalls – Chell's – were heard in the distance, getting closer.

At once Wheatley blurted, "D'ye think Chell has a boyfriend?"

Of all the puzzles to solve, Katniss had not expected that one. "What? No!"

Wheatley hissed answer faded as Chell entered the foyer, batting at a slightly singed patch on her pants leg. "All clear. We're good to go."

"Are you – on fire? Shouldn't you get that looked at?" Wheatley asked.

Chell barely glanced at the smoking patch. "I've had worse."

"Fact," Craig came into view on the rail behind her, "From what Robert Frost tasted of desire, he got a terrible case of heartburn."

- Auxiliary Core Processing Center -

Here's another fact: the difference between a maze and a labyrinth is, a maze is a puzzle from which you emerge, from one end to the other. A labyrinth is a puzzle where you try to find the center.

Chell had found the center of the labyrinth.

She led Katniss there, taking a different route this time, to get to the root beneath _Her_ chamber, the central core processor. The whirring machines created a slight vibration that could be felt even through the heavily insulated boots. The light was spare and rust-colored, except for the dots of light at each doorway. At the way they'd entered, Rick was standing guard. At the other entrance Mimi kept watch. Craig and Kevin were just barely pinpricks in the room's distant corners.

In Chell's hands, Wheatley's blue optic was shrunk to a pinprick. He had directed them to the Auxiliary Core Processing Station, but second-guessed himself every step of the way.

"By the by, just reminding you, there is _always_ the chance to back out, hope springs eternal, we can indeed find some – other – way than dealing with _her_ directly—"

"Is that it?" Chell asked Wheatley. He swiveled around and saw the lit panel that she was looking at.

"Yes – that's an affirmative. That is _definitely_ the place."

They heard a deep hum, followed by a pronouncement, which, down here, caused sound vibrations down in the heart of the humans' bones: "_Test Subject Twenty-Four: It is five minutes past time for your test to begin. If you return to your test now I will save cake for you. Test Subject Twenty-Four, _report for testing _NOW_."

In the time since she started talking, Chell, completely unperturbed, had strode to the lit panel, a wall of nothing but brightly colored buttons. She knelt in front of it, shifting the portal device onto her back in its makeshift holster. There was a spherical cage of metal, just the right size to accommodate a sphere like Wheatley. Chell poised the core on the very edge of it, balancing for the moment.

Katniss followed her and heard the woman say to Wheatley, "All right. You said you weren't ready to tell us before, well, now, you're ready. Exactly why will plugging you into the mainframe help us?"

Wheatley cleared his throat, his optic darting to and fro, unwilling to meet Katniss or Chell's stern gaze. "Well, um, there's a button, see, you can press so as to put _me_ in charge of the facility, instead of _her_…"

"And make _you_ a Gamemaker?" Katniss' voice was thick with disgust. "No way. What else can we do?"

"Well… um…" Wheatley paused, fidgeting his handles like a human might twiddle his thumbs. "There is my… original function…"

"And what's that?" Katniss asked.

"I. D. Sphere, that's… I… Intelligence… Dampening… Sphere." He dropped his gaze. "I make people—computers—stupid. Constantly. That's all that I'm good for… in the world."

"So if we took you up to her – and you gave her bad ideas –" Chell started.

"Wait. Bad for _her_, or bad for _testing_?" Katniss interrupted.

"Just _her_," Wheatley answered. "I was made because, heh, funny story, she terrified the old Aperture scientists so much with her 'I shouldn't exist' and her 'I'm going to kill you all with neurotoxin' that they made me – put me together from – you know, I'm not even sure how they wrote me – they made me to sort of even the playing field, make it harder for her to hurt people. And I _can_ do it," he added defensively. "I remember very clearly, they told me I was perfect. But I warn you, the instant, no, the _nanosecond_ you snap me on to her, she'll know. And she… she loathes me." His voice was low and quavering.

"_Calling all other test subjects_," GLaDOS' voice made their sternums rattle, it would have taken over their pulses if it could: "_Any sightings of Test Subject Twenty-Four, real name Katniss Everdeen_, _are to be reported immediately_. _Warning: Test Subject is highly irrational and has severe pyromaniacal tendencies_."

"We're wasting time," Katniss muttered as soon as the pronouncement was over. "She'll target Peeta next—"

"I can't do this!" Wheatley blurted. "I can't, I can't, I can't. This was a terrible idea, leading you two here, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. This responsibility – I can't do it. I'm not equipped for it. I'm a horrible person and I'm sorry."

Katniss stared. "You can't just give up! You're all we've got!"

"But I'm not enough. I'm sorry."

"You're not even going to _try!_"

"Katniss, relax." Chell stood up between the girl and the core. "Just step back a sec."

Katniss obliged, moving just close enough to one exit to hear the pink sphere humming, "_Donnez, donnez, c'est prêter au bon Dieu…_"

Chell turned back to Wheatley. He was swaying back and forth just very slightly, as if trying to make the leap out of the door of the cage and away from _her_. "I'm sorry," he said again, his pinprick of an optic looking up at her sadly.

Instead of answering, Chell held Wheatley's frame with both of her linen-wrapped hands and leaned her forehead against the top of his optic. His core was warm and buzzing with the murmur of computer activity. And at once he fell still.

"Wheatley. You can do this. Be brave. For me." She said, softly.

Between her hands and forehead, she felt him grow steady.

Then he said, in a voice so soft she barely caught it, "All-all right, then." She leaned back, and let him fall back into the connector port. She started to turn away. He said, "Um, Chell? Stay close, please, okay?"

She nodded.

After Chell turned around, Wheatley's frame jittered, telescoped, swiveled around him, and the whole chamber began to hum.

From the door, Rick yelled, "We're in a tight spot!" and the Opera Sphere began to sing "_Carmina Burana_" fortissimo.

Wheatley's cage whirred around him, and then clicked into gear. "Wish me luuuuuuuuuck!" Wheatley cried as he rocketed out of sight.

Chell backed off and found Katniss standing at her elbow. Katniss grabbed Chell's hands. "Here."

"What?" They started to run towards the door, as if of one mind.

"Take my portal device. I'll use yours."

"What are you talking about—"

"Your gun only shoots blue portals, but you're so much better at this than I am. You should have mine."

There was no time to argue, and secretly Chell had been thinking that very thing for a long time. "All right." Running in stride under Rick's optic as he cried, over and over, "_We're in a tight spot," _they made the change.

- Throughout the Facility -

Every test chamber quaked a little with the impact. The lights flickered and the AI's voice was grimed over with static. "_What what what is happen-n-n-ning…? Do not panic – gninnneppah si tahw—_"

"_Wahooo!_ Ah! Hello!" At once another voice came over the intercom speakers, a male voice that was chipper and lively and spoke with a peculiar accent that none of the test subjects could place. "Hello there, Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System – and hello, little tiny test subjects!"

"_Oh. It's you_."

Tributes paused in their testing. Even they, hardened by years and years of Games, flinched at the loathing in those two syllables.

"Um… you say 'it's you…' can you be a bit more specific?"

"_Have you forgotten? No. You can't have. Last time we met I should have burned the memory of it on every single one of your pathetic synapses. You're the _moron_ that they built to make me an _idiot! _You're that Intelligence Dampening Sphere. _Who attached you to me?"

"I'm _not_ a moron, I'm a sphere built for a very specific purpose, and my name is _Wheatley_, just saying hello to all of the test subjects down there… hello!"

"_Do you think this is _funny? _There is testing in progress! Human lives are mine to oversee!_"

"Yes, I can _see_ that… Jeez, lady, how many cameras have you _got_ here? Are you some kind of voyeur?"

In Finnick Odair's test chamber a camera exploded. He dodged in time, getting a nick on the shoulder from a flying shred of metal.

"Kidding!" Wheatley urged. "Just kidding! But seriously, lass, don't you think these tests are a little impersonal? What kind of Aperture Science hospitality have we shown them? Not even any cake, 's far as the eye can see! Why don't we at least bring 'em all to the same room, let them say hello?"

"_There is testing to be done. More than half of the test subjects have already failed. We have no time to spare for your wretched hospitality, and that is a _terrible _idea_—"

"But cake!"

"_But SCIENCE_."

Wheatley was silent for a moment, and if GLaDOS hasn't been counting up the myriad, myriad ways that he was being an impossible idiot whose arrival could have been more ill-starred, she would have realized he was _thinking_.

"Maybe you're not all that good at this whole 'cake' business," he ventured. "Maybe we should consult an expert. _Saaaaay_…"

- Test Chamber 23 -

And then there were sixty seconds, sixty pure seconds in which Test Chamber 23 was invisible and inaudible to GLaDOS. Wheatley briefly assumed possession and control of the entire chamber, making every camera his eye, and the loudspeaker his voice.

"Hello? Hello, are you all right? Peter, Peeta, are you all right?"

Peeta had braced himself against a wall, one arm instinctively raised up in self-defense, even though no one in the facility had raised an arm to strike him. But when he heard the new voice, he dared to look up, and look around.

"Peeta, I'd really appreciate it if you said something—"

"Yeah," Peeta called out. "I'm fine."

"Good – _great_. Don't worry, Katniss sent me."

"_Katniss_ sent you?"

"Yes. It's going to be okay… I'm going to take care of you."

And the sixty seconds were up, and the tests – _all_ of the tests – proceeded as before. With the computational equivalent of a hyperactive five-year-old darting from chamber to chamber, distracting GLaDOS and trying to inquire of all the test subjects what kind of cake they liked, and how did they take their tea?

Outside of the Facility –

Ratings spiked.

The Games had been, up to that point, something very nearly resembling _boring_. There were only so many tests that you could attempt to solve alongside your favorite tribute before you just went to the kitchen, had a drink and (in the case of the Capitol audience) started to wish that the turrets would get up and stalk the tributes.

Cecelia had been the most exciting test subject to watch by far, but now she was dead (had gone out with _style_, though).

The disappearance of Katniss Everdeen had also piqued interest, but the more cynical in the Districts assumed that the Capitol had found a way to kill her within the arena, and she was gone for good. And nothing could really compare to a dissolving alliance, or a good tribute-on-tribute _brawl._

But now, ratings spiked, not only for the Capitol, but for all of Panem. The chipper male voice with the funny accent was a crowd-pleaser, a game-changer.

President Snow was well aware of this. He now kept on his person at all times the little remote that connected straight to GLaDOS' power supply, and the radio that could connect him straight to her.

What would the Quarter Quell look like, he wondered, if that comic relief voice got just a little more screentime, so to speak? Everyone loved comic relief. And if that irritating human empathy factor he seemed to have could be eliminated…

So much the better.


	9. Electricity

A/N: Happy Fourth of July! Now everyone gets to celebrate Independence Day, even if you're not American!

To all of the story alert-ers, the favorite-ers, and especially the reviewers, THANK YOU! Special thanks go to the articulate and beautifully verbose review left by **carolnegate**, and the galvanizing review from **Taryn Ravensong** - a comparison to _Blue Sky_ made my entire day! Knowing that people are taking my story seriously, and looking forward to it, has really changed how I relate to this li'l thought experiment, and now I'm determined to make it the best it can possibly be. So thanks to all of you! Now, enjoy!

* * *

><p>Katniss and Chell did not stop running until the upheavals ceased and GLaDOS' voice, threatening and insulting the blue sphere that was now attached to her, faded to a murmur.<p>

"That," Katniss tottered three last, heavy steps before leaning against the trailing, "May have been – the worst – possible mistake we could – you're hurt."

"Only a bit," Chell answered automatically.

"Let me see." Katniss was on her feet again, inspecting the arm that Chell presented to her. A wide, but not deep gash raked the skin over her elbow.

"It must have caught on something when we were hurrying out of there. I've had worse. I think."

Katniss rifled through the pockets on her suit. "I had a bad scratch on day one – Haymitch sent me medicine – do I still have – yes, I still have it!" She spun open the lid of the little medicine jar, and dabbed two fingers in. "This may sting a bit."

"No, we should save it, we might not get more."

"Chell, don't worry. I'll be stingy." She spread the medicine with care over the cut. Chell, she noticed, barely changed her stoic expression. "There. Not too bad. Besides, it's better to get to the cut now than let it be infected and… yeah."

"There won't be any more care packages is what I'm saying."

"I know. I can make a little go a long way. Don't jostle it."

Chell nodded, then leaned heavily against the wall. Katniss noticed the way that her – _partner? Companion? Ally_? _– _held herself. Only her left hand, cradling the opposite elbow, showed anything of energy or strength. The rest was flagging, swayed, lowered, everything spelled weariness. "Are you okay?"

Katniss wasn't sure she'd ever asked that of anyone in her life, other than Prim and perhaps Peeta. Chell waved a hand. "Just tired. Worried." She glanced back the way they came.

"Thinking about the other cores?"

Chell nodded. "I hope they got away. And I hope Wheatley is alright. I hope_…_" she glanced at her arm. "I hope this medicine works."

"It will. And don't worry about us running out." Katniss carefully packed the medicine away, rubbing the residue on her fingers on her own minor scratches. "My mom said it was always astounding how much meat I could get off of one scrawny squirrel."

"Squirrel?"

"I used to catch 'em fresh, back home."

"You hunt, you mean?"

"All the time," Katniss answered. "Poach, really. It wasn't exactly legal."

"What weapon did you use? A gun?"

She gave a derisive chuckle. "I wish. Bow and arrow. My dad taught me how to shoot. It's kept me and my sister alive."

"And your mother, I guess?"

"Yeah. Her too. She's a healer." Katniss eyed Chell's arm. "Wish she were here – she'd really know how to patch that up."

"I'm fine. Really. Tell me more about hunting. Do you go into the woods? Or… I don't know, a desert?"

"Woods. There's a wide meadow beyond the fence in District Twelve, and after that it's just woods and wilderness for miles and miles."

Chell nodded. Katniss got the distinct feeling that she didn't want to hear about nailing squirrels in the eye or bartering meat for goods. Slowly she began to talk about the forest, how it fringed District Twelve like a blanket tossed aside, how you crossed over the meadow and the smell and sound of the district faded away behind you, and the trees grew thicker and closer together, and when you knew you were in the forest the silence was profound, interrupted by birdcalls and wind and your own breathing. And how even in the darkest, thickest tangle of trees you never minded how bumpy the ground became or how easily you could get lost, because you were _free_, free from the people you loved and the Capitol and the poverty and free from the past. And all around was green.

Katniss, when she ran out of things to say, stopped, and saw that Chell had leaned back her head and closed her eyes. A sad, thoughtful look was on her face. But in the silence she sat up. "Did something happen?"

"No."

Chell heaved a sigh, sitting up straight. "Your woods sound beautiful."

"I'll take you there." Impulsively, Katniss reached for Chell's hand and squeezed it. "Promise. The minute we get out of here."

"And we'll have fresh squirrel," Chell murmured. Her hand was cold.

"Rabbit's better. Is your arm—?"

Chell raised her right elbow to check. Her eyes widened. Katniss leaned over to see: the cut was well on its way to healed. "Not bad," said Chell.

"Haymitch knows what he's doing." Katniss felt a rare flush of pride for her mentor. She stood up, pulling Chell along behind her. "So. It looks like Wheatley's attached to the mainframe, good and secure. Now she's, what, a fifth less dangerous?"

"Maybe a half."

"I really don't think the other tributes are any safer with him in the wings." Katniss noticed that Chell didn't disagree. She also noticed that Chell hadn't let go of her hand. Katniss lightly dropped it and said, casually as she could, "But he's buying us time."

"So now we find the generator…"

"Wait a minute. I've been thinking." Chell turned to her. "If we find the generator and destroy it – assuming that we can – what if the test chambers all, I don't know, collapse or explode? We _can't_ stop this Game without taking the tributes out first." Katniss waited until she saw Chell nod. "Unless you want to, I don't know, bargain with her?"

"No bargaining. But with Wheatley on hand, we might be able to sabotage something else."

"You took care of the neurotoxin…"

Chell nodded, a brief look of pride crossing her face. "Until she notices it, at least. But I did that, now this time… I'm thinking hijacking an elevator."

Katniss nodded. "How do we find one to hijack?"

"There's always a way. Worse comes to worst, look for the graffiti."

"Did you make those?"

"No. At least," Chell corrected herself, "I don't remember making them. I like to think a friend left them behind for me. Someone who knew the facility even better than me."

"Did they ever find a way out?"

Chell was silent.

One Ignored Elevator Chamber -

Somewhere in the blessed world, the sun was shining bright.

But not down here.

Somewhere in the godforsaken arena, Wheatley was being incompetent. He had already elevated incompetence to nearly an art form, but now he had a grander canvas on which to work, and a scathing, snarling critic whom he loved to piss off. His newest masterpiece was "Symphony in 4,000 Turrets, Variations on a Theme of New York Wiseguys, _Sans _Casing, _sans _Bullet." (Medium: Metal.)

And somewhere GLaDOS was raging at him.

And somewhere the hearts of tributes were light, because the difficulty settings on their tests were plummeting, and would soon be in negative numbers.

And somewhere an audience was laughing.

But there was no joy in a lonely, derelict corner of the Testing Center. Chell struck the cable box of an abandoned elevator shaft and swore, defaming the name of the brilliant Aperture Scientists.

Chell had removed the casing and clenched her jaw, staring fixedly at the wiring. After the fifth curse, Katniss, who was ostensibly "standing guard" but was sitting down at the moment, said, "Step one: hijack an elevator. In progress."

Chell turned to glare at her. "Would _you _like to give this a go?"

"Coal miner's daughter," Katniss indicated herself. "What do you think I know about electronics?"

"How to blow things up, maybe."

"Which still does us no good."

"Stop deprecating yourself like that."

"What?"

"Stop putting yourself down. If you – a message!"

"What's it say?"

Chell squinted at the bright blue screen. "Hacking Disabled... Suck It… Black Mesa."

"Black Mesa? Who was that, another test subject?"

Chell shook her head and shrugged.

"But a message is good, right?"

Shrug, shake of the head. Chell kept working, leaving Katniss alone with her thoughts. Come to think of it, she remembered hearing something about the first Victor of District 12 – who was from long, _long_ ago – winning because he _did_ know something about explosives, and was the only one in an arena full of bombs who kept his head about him.

Even just thinking that, she winced. Well. In a manner of speaking. Still, that was something. District Seven had its axes, District Four had its tridents, District Two had its… _everything_, but at least District Twelve's industry could contribute a bit to their Hunger Games training.

Then again, when was the last time an arena had contained any bombs other than those around the platforms?

A green light, that reminded Katniss painfully of the sunlit trees of home, cut its way through the seams between the wall panels. "Lady! Other lady! I found 'em, pardners!"

Katniss got up and pried the panel apart to see. "Rick?"

"Absolutely, ma'am, and in the flesh."

Katniss counted the cores. "Where's Kevin?"

"Fact: The Space Core finally got to go to space."

"Really?"

"No," Rick growled at Craig. "Stop lyin'. We lost track of him. Had to leave 'im behind. Left him one pistol…"

"A _pistol_?"

"For the coyotes."

"Now you're the one who's lying. You've lost him."

"How could you have lost Kevin?" Chell turned from the control panel. "He's loud, persistent, and his optic is _bright yellow_. And Katniss, I'm giving up here. This is a pure Aperture Science device, all right. I'm not even sure it actually calls an elevator."

"Why would Aperture-made things not do what they're supposed to?"

Chell looked at her with a wry, unreadable expression. She hefted the portal gun at her feet. "See this?"

She nodded.

"Original purpose was something like a _shower curtain_. Anyway, the last lever I pulled had no effect. Why did they even have that…" a flash of blue at her elbow caught her eye. Katniss crossed the room to read the message with Chell:

_Contact an Engineer_.

"Well." Chell leaned back on the springs of her boots. "Do you have any ideas?" She turned to glance at her. "You look like you do."

"Engineers… District Three makes and programs electronics. We could…find them."

"Are their victors still alive?"

From the seam in the wall there was a crescendo of "_Si, si!_" and "Last time I checked, Other Lady" and "Fact: Test Subjects Five and Six have the highest testing scores of any test subjects still alive."

"But," Katniss said quickly, "neither of them seems to be quite – all there. If you take my drift."

"Tell me about them."

"I… really, I don't know them that well. They won before my time. I've seen them a bit on TV, but they're not the most popular Victors by a long shot. Johanna Mason called them Nuts and Volts."

"First of all, Katniss, have you forgotten that we've developed pet names for the robots in our lives?"

She paused, then smiled ruefully, then chuckled, then shook her head.

"Just making it clear. Second of all, who is Johanna Mason and why do we care?"

Katniss smirked. "We don't care. She's a… a…" her mouth twisted up. "A scarlet woman, that's it. I don't like her. But back to District Three… Beetee and Wiress are both older, graying. Wiress mutters a lot to herself, and Beetee is always fiddling with some electrical gadget or another."

"But they're Victors."

"I don't know how they won."

Chell walked over to the seam in the wall. "If the three of you can commandeer an elevator, without attracting _Her_ notice, do it. And bring it here."

The three lights nodded, then swiveled away. She turned back to Katniss. "Does anyone ever win the Game purely by luck?"

"Luck helps," Katniss answered at once. "Luck _really_ helps. But no one ever wins purely by chance. Then again, after you win the Game… most Victors tend to fall apart. I think Wiress fell apart."

Chell frowned darkly at the words, then asked, "What about after their victories? What does a Victor do with their free time?"

"Mentor the new tributes," Katniss answered, "for the rest of their life. But each one must get a hobby, too – Wiress did something with music, at least I could follow that. I could never really keep up with what Beetee did. District Three is so opposite to Twelve, it all went over my head."

"Not much chance either became an elevator operator, then?" Chell asked.

But Katniss had fallen silent again. Chell let her work her thoughts out. Far away a mighty pipe rumbled, no doubt delivering a shipment of repulsion gel to the wrong location – or, possibly, blue paint to the correct location.

"Remember how Cecelia called me 'Mockingjay'?"

Chell turned at Katniss' question. "Yeah, why?"

"The Mockingjay is the symbol of the rebellion. District Eight was one of the rebelling ones…" Katniss began suddenly to laugh. "What if the Victors have taken up rebellion as their hobby?"

"Wait a minute. You said District Eight was in rebellion. Is District Three…?"

"Yes."

"How do you _know_?"

"Some news, some small uprisings, but – the people there, when Peeta and I visited last year on our Victory Tour, they were happy to see us. The Districts that are eating out of the Capitol's hand didn't react that way. Besides, I think Beetee would be in on any rebellion that was happening. He just seems to have that kind of awareness of everything."

"Katniss, please think. Be absolutely certain that you're not just going off of a gut feeling. You're _sure_ that District Three is rebellious against the Capitol?"

"Yes. And even if it's not…" she pointed to the elevator. "We need an engineer. We were going to start collecting test subjects sooner or later – we're just—"

What Katniss said was drowned out in the spluttering _hiss_ of an elevator slotting into space, reluctantly and slowly. Once the elevator slowed to a stop (sending out sparks as it did) they could make out a second cacophony: Rick's voice was bellowing "_Yee-haw! _That'll _learn ya! Ride to the sound of the guns!_"

"Rick, _shut up!_" Katniss yelled. Rick fell silent at once, staring at Katniss with a look of almost meekness.

"Sorry, other lady, but this elevator needs to be told who's in charge…"

"Well, now that you've told probably every camera in fifty miles of us that you're riding this elevator, we need to get out. All four of – hey, you found Kevin!"

Kevin was staring straight down at the elevator with a level of focus that was positively eerie.

"Kevin?"

"_I am the force of gravity_," was all that he said.

"He's contributin' his part to the load, little ladies, don't you worry," Rick assured them.

Chell was already standing in front of the door. It hissed open abruptly, and then shut just as quickly. Chell looked up at the cores.

"Fact: We will prevent this elevator from killing you," Craig informed her. "If we sacrifice some liberty."

"How much liberty?" Katniss moved to stand beside Chell. Craig was silent. She pressed on, "We need to get to Test Subjects Five or Six – one or the other. Can you do that?"

Craig's optic whirred, dilated, contracted, spun, quite like Wheatley's had when he was first attached to GLaDOS. Finally he said, "Forty-five point five percent chance of reaching Test Subject Five. Forty-five point five percent chance of reaching Test Subject Six. Point five percent chance of dying on the way."

"Chance of choosing one or the other?" Chell asked.

"Snowball in hell chance."

Chell turned to Katniss. "Well. We only have one shot. We risk being spotted, or picking one that's no use. We could bail and try to find another way." Her hands were already braced on her dual portal device. "What do you say?"

The door opened and stuck that way. Katniss answered, "I say, sounds like a decent shot. And may the odds—"

Test Chamber 6M –

"—be _ever_ in your favor."

Thus spoke a little white turret, with a red solemn eye and not a bullet in its body.

"My thanks to you," Wiress answered. "Now let me focus."

The turret fell silent. Wiress had adopted it one day ago, rejecting the Companion Cube that GLaDOS had tried to foist upon her in favor of more cryptic company.

She surveyed the test before her. It was almost disappointingly straightforward – the second AI, the male one, was to thank for that, as well as for the large electronic screen beaming "Keep Calm and Carry On" near the doorway, with a picture of a crown on it. Was the crown supposed to represent victory? Well, it was very thoughtful.

Really, the only complicated part of this test was the massive, bottomless chasm that divided the entrance from the exit. On either side of the chasm, loose panels in the wall gave glimpses of the blackness behind them. Wiress was on a tiny island of existence in a sea of formless void. Also, her hair was getting into her eyes.

Wiress had the whole test figured out now. But her hair was still not secured. She took out the tortoiseshell clips and shook it out. The clips were a gift from her District – a reproduction of the tokens she carried into her first Game, twenty-seven years ago.

"The Greek philosopher Aeschylus was killed when an eagle dropped a tortoise onto his skull." The turret's voice was very nearly musical.

"You don't say." Wiress learned a lot of things from her friend. There, her short, wavy hair was good and secure.

"The eagle was the sacred bird of Zeus, and carrier of his thunderbolts."

"You shall have to tell me all about Zeus in a minute." Wiress stepped back a few paces, then took a running start. She allowed herself one last frivolous thought – that it had been some time since the female AI had intruded on the test, to spout insinuations about Wiress' sanity – before frivolity shut down, and she thought only of the test. She hit the button the instant before her foot hit the Aerial Faith Plate. Before her, a Cube Deployment Tunnel deployed – an Edgeless Cube. Of course. The Edgeless Cube began to plummet into the abyss, but Wiress was already on a trajectory to meet it. First, teal portal at her landing pad, peridot portal in spitting distance of the exit door. She grabbed the cube and hit the second Faith Plate. The Edgeless Cube was dropped onto the Superbutton, and she saw it already rolling away, but she also heard the door hiss open. Now all she had to do was continue falling through the teal and peridot portals, and run through the now open door before the sphere rolled off the button and the door closed. It was all superbly simple.

Then the universe fell apart, the void entered into the island of existence and flooded it, because before Wiress' eyes the teal portal spun shut and opened again with a red edge, opening out into darkness.

Resistance was futile. Wiress fell through.


	10. Undermining

A/N: Dear readers, do please check out the new, revised, AND expanded Chapter Two. It just includes a couple of scenes that I felt the story needed, and an revision of Katniss Meets Portals. I hope you enjoy them, and then enjoy this new chapter, too!

- Meet the Engineer -

Her feet connected with a wire railing and she sprang forward automatically. When a bright light flashed in her eyes out of nowhere, she barely flinched, turning to one side – only to feel the portal gun wrenched out of her hands, and she was pressed against the wall, arms pinned behind her. The portal through which she had come closed. An instinct told her "Don't fight." So she didn't, going limp as a rag doll.

In the afterglow from the beam of light that had tried to blind her – two beams of light? No, three – a face resolved itself. It was the most famous face in all of Panem.

"Wiress," she said, low and steady, like she was talking to a scared animal, "Do you know who I am?"

"Sure I do," Wiress answered. "You're Haymitch's girl."

"I'm not going to hurt you."

"You want an alliance? I'm game. Ha… Game." She smiled at her own inadvertent joke. "So what are we doing?"

"We need… an engineer." Katniss Everdeen looked a bit discombobulated.

"And you wanted Beetee. Sorry."

"No, we're happy to have you, Wiress, really. Are you any good with electronics?"

And Wiress had heard this girl was smart. "I'm from District Three, silly girl. Of ocourse I am. You're setting the tributes free."

Katniss' jaw fell. "How did you…?"

"You're Haymitch's girl. You look outside of the frame. Hop outside of the box to challenge Gamemakers. You pull me from my own miniature arena… not exactly hard to guess why. Why me, why not Finnick the beautiful or bitter Johanna? Need my skills. I'm not as good as Beetee at anything, clearly you couldn't choose which District Three Victor to free. You're still bound by the rules of the Game, as are we all. Now more specifically, what do you want me for?"

Katniss' jaw was still dropped. Wiress looked up to see that the light (to which she had grown accustomed) came from a while metal sphere with a purple computer screen of sorts built in to it. Noticing her gaze, it said flatly: "Fact: Sherlock Holmes was capable of transforming himself into an otter."

"Are you different?" Wiress asked politely.

The sphere answered, "Dr. Watson, to match, sometimes wore a hedgehog suit. Fact: It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"You know, Katniss," said another human voice from Wiress' level, "I'd say that this one is all there."

Wiress looked at her and oohed appreciatively. "Oh, so Katniss managed to duplicate herself. _Most_ useful, I am sure. Did you duplicate yourself using portals? Could you teach me? And can I have my gun back?"

"She's not my duplicate." Katniss let go of Wiress' arms and then handed her back her portal device. "She's—"

"A survivor, like us." Wiress nodded to the strange woman, who nodded back, in some confusion, and then said, "Chell."

"Wiress. Now, for the last time, O Sharp-Shooting One, what do you need me to _do_?"

- In A Neglected Elevator Foyer -

When Wiress was set before the elevator control panel, her eyes simply lit up. She sat down before it, pried open the casing, and began to pick at it with deft fingers. Chell (accompanied by Rick) went on an expedition to gather materials. After some time, she returned with pliers, a screwdriver, and tweezers for the engineer.

At first, as Wiress worked, Katniss and Chell were both silent, letting her focus, muttering to herself. But when they noticed that her mutterings had become, "On the other hand, I _like_ black tea, and green tea all of the time just gets boring, not to mention it goes badly with almost all cookies…" They glanced at each other.

Shrug, raised eyebrows?

Shrug, raised eyebrows, downturned mouth.

Katniss ventured, "Wiress, you know Cecelia is dead, right?"

Wiress' hands slowed for only an instant, then, back to work they went. "Yes. Saw the cannon. Heard her face."

"You knew her?"

"Of course. She was kind woman. Too kind for her own good."

"I… we know how she died."

"She died in front of you?"

Katniss hesitated, but Chell answered, "She practically did."

"Not really," Katniss said. "She somehow found us, and once she saw me she called me 'Mockingjay,' and, I think she—"

"Beat a robot to pieces with her portal gun." Chell couldn't keep a note of admiration out of her voice.

"—and died for it," Katniss finished flatly.

"Sounds like a good way to go. 'M sure District Eight very proud."

"Do you know what she meant, calling me 'Mockingjay'?"

Wiress didn't answer for a minute; she whistled softly, studying the wires. Then she stood up. "We have to move the floor."

"What?"

"Floor. Lift it up."

"But Cecelia –"

"I'll work on the floor," Chell told them. She got up and walked to the wall, knocking against one of the metal panes.

"Most people," Wiress said, not looking at Katniss, "Did not want you to know. But in District Three we have a saying: 'Knowledge is power.' If you believe old Nuts when she tells you."

"I _will_ believe – is it about the rebellion? Tell me!"

"Of course. You think a rebellion could last at all without Victors supporting it somehow? Our plan at first…"

"'Our'?"

"Haymitch, Beetee, Finnick, Johanna, Cecelia, Mags – Mags has waited her chance many and many a year – and others…"

"Was Peeta in on it?"

Wiress gave a dry chuckle. "No. He didn't need to be. Nor did you. We planned to break out of the arena with the help of… well, whatever we Victors could scramble up, and District Thirteen."

And Katniss repeated "_District Thirteen?_" so loudly that there might have been trouble, had not a massive creaking noise sounded from the other side of the wall where Chell stood. It – whatever it was – creaked, whirred, hummed, and buzzed. Chell darted away from the wall, and seized her portal gun. Katniss followed suit. Wiress simply took up a screwdriver and stood at the ready.

The air was so thick with tension, a knife could have cut it. And then the creaking noise ceased, and the theoretical knife arrived in the form of "Hello? Is that you, Ch—somebody chill? Or if you're another test subject, ignore me! Forget I said anything!"

"_Wheatley_?" Chell asked, lowering her gun. Now a slight gleam could be discerned between the panels, electric-blue.

"I just happened to be passing by – thwarting infernal wiles and all that – and, um, you called?"

It sounded like he was trying to whisper, but the effect was undercut by the fact that his voice just seemed _large_, filling the chamber, as though an array of desk-sized speakers conferred it, and not the pair of fist-sized speakers that had been on either side of his original body.

"I just wanted to call one of the spheres—where are they?"

"I…" Wheatley sounded sheepish, and the blue light dimmed a little, "I think I might have scared them off. But I know Rich is chasing down a turret, bloody braggart, I knew he'd desert you…"

"But She hasn't found them?"

"Nope! What did you need, anyway?"

"Can you see us in here?"

"No… I'd like to, really, but –" A panel under Chell's hand twitched erratically, fidgeting. "If I use a camera, I've no guarantee that She won't see as well. But I can modify the room – I have the blueprints – aha, right here! Right here on file. If you need me to bring anything, maybe, ooh, I've got a record of this fellow called '_The Prince'_ here on tape, he sounds like fun."

"If you can modify the room," Chell said, "We need a part of the floor lifted." She turned to Wiress. "Tap on the panel you want to lift."

Wiress did so, beating her foot in a jaunty tattoo.

"Wheatley, just lift that panel, please – _gently_."

The panel bucked under Wiress' foot, and then, just in time for her to remove it, it was tossed entirely off of its hinges. There was a brief flash of brilliant blue light from below, then it vanished.

"That all?" Wheatley asked.

"Bring the other cores here," Katniss said, as Wiress knelt back onto the floor as if no interruption had taken place.

"No worries, I'll 'round 'em up and then be on my way, lickety-split, won't even ask about that possible third person you may or may not have acquired through mysterious means, women have their ways, am I right? Mum's the word."

"You're stalling." Chell told him flatly.

"Right… sorry… just… getting on it. It was nice to see you – well, in a manner of speaking." The monstrous buzz and creak noise started again, but then ceased. Wheatley added, "And take care, you hear me?"

"Don't worry," Chell said. But her hand remained on the wall panel that he'd twitched, and after the _bzzzz, whrrrr, hmmmmm_ and _zot-zot-zot-zubbb_ that was Wheatley's new footsteps faded, she said, so softly that only Katniss heard, "It was nice to see you, too."

The ceiling opened and a collection of lights peered in. Wiress glanced up at them once, and then again, and then a third time. "Oh! Friends!"

"Lady – Other Lady – " Rick had not yet fully grasped the notion of Katniss and Chell having separate names – "You would not _believe_ the desperate manhunt that yours truly has been entangled in, just now. Inspector Javert, eat your heart out."

"Fact: Rick has not read _Les Miserables_, and has only seen the musical. At which he wept. Like a little girl."

"Shaddup!"

"Five times."

"They're here when we don't need 'em, and absent when we do," Katniss observed.

"But they're on our side," Chell said softly. "Listen up!" This she addressed to the cores, who fell silent at once, except for one last "I was told there would be space" from Kevin.

"Gang, this is Wiress. You will treat her with the same respect you'd show Katniss or me." Chell did not ask if they got it. The four cores saw in her a willpower very nearly as terrible as _Her_, and pledged their loyalty accordingly.

As the cores attempted to introduce themselves to Wiress, Katniss knelt beside her. "Did you say District Thirteen?"

"I did."

"I thought you said there are only twelve districts," Chell said.

"In Panem, yes." Wiress tucked a strand of hair out of her eyes. "District Thirteen is sovereign unto itself."

"What does that mean?"

"It means it's not loyal to Panem." Chell answered Katniss. "Is it another country, then?"

Wiress shook her head. "Too small. Was a District, but when it rebelled the Capitol didn't dare fight back. Not properly. Kicking-under-the-table sort of fight ensued. 'Cold war.'"

"Nuclear weapons?" Katniss offered.

A nod. "Stalemate. Was given independence in exchange for complete silence, exile, solitude, no communication, and no birthday presents."

"Then why help us now? After seventy-four _years_ of Games?"

Wires turned and fixed Katniss with black eyes. Her entire and focused attention was unnerving. "You. You, from filthy laughingstock District Twelve, who sacrificed self and remained human, brought music to the arena and love, too, girl on fire who used her own death as a weapon – you are spark meeting dry tinder. Boom."

As she said that, the elevator hissed into place. The door opened – and a needle-thin beacon of red shot into the chamber.

Chell jumped, Katniss ducked for cover and then thought to grab the unmoving Wiress by the collar and try to drag her back.

"A _turret_ in the elevator?" Katniss whispered.

Barely audible, the turret whispered, "I'm different."

"Oh, don't worry!" Wiress shook off Katniss' hand. "It's my friend."

"Friend?" Chell repeated.

"Bullet-free." Wiress walked into the elevator and patted the turret's white shell affectionately. "I figured you would find me."

"I was pursued."

"_Aha!_" Rick bellowed from a nook in the ceiling. "I knew I'd catch you one day, you varmint!"

"Anyway." Wiress gave Rick a single, calm look – but something _in_ that look made him quail, shrink his optic to a tiny rectangle of green, and decide that the Different Turret and this Third Lady were not to be bothered for the rest of his existence. She went on, "This elevator is now pliant to my wishes. Will one of you friends take the reins?"

"They certainly will," Chell spoke on behalf of the cores. "Craig."

"Present."

"You're taking command."

"Just pop on down here," Wiress said, holding out the control box as if she would catch the core with it. "And I'll connect you."

Craig dithered about complying, offering the fact that he would die instantly via immolation upon being disconnected from his Rail, and while Wiress tried to point out the logical fallacies in his thinking, Katniss approached Chell.

"Chell, we _have_ to save the rest of the tributes now. We absolutely _have _to. I mean –" she kept her closed fist over her mouth, as if she would keep the words inside her from flying out, "I want to save Peeta, of course I do, but I think that _he_ would want me to save everyone else first. It's that kind of stupid – but really good – way that he thinks. And if the rebellion – if District Thirteen is real –"

"Oh, it's real," Wiress said offhandedly. "Unlike the prospect of spontaneous self-combustion."

"—Then we aren't just tributes of District Twelve any more. Do you understand? No, you don't understand," she answered herself. A glint was in her eye now. "We just need to get started and then the more Victors we can get to our side the stronger our alliance will be—how, I don't know, but we can. And then we need to – Chell, I know you don't want to be seen but we have to show ourselves, then. Before we destroy the generator. All of Panem must see the Victors working together." A fierce light gleamed in her eye. "It's exactly what the Capitol doesn't want – for—"

"Fact! There is an elevator control—"

"_Yeeeeeeearrrrrgh headbutt of fury!_" Rick hollered from above them, before body-checking (core-checking?) Craig and bumping the latter off of his rail. When the sparks cleared, Rick swiveled triumphantly. "That's jest what I needed. A distraction! Genghis Khan, that bud's for you."

Wiress picked up the purple-eyed sphere, which trembled a little, its shutters almost closed. "Fact… you have _no_ self-control, you testosterone-laden bully – Fact: that was a gross violation of personal space…."

"You were saying?" Chell prompted Katniss.

Katniss yanked her sight from the odd sight of watching a robot have a nervous breakdown, and asked, "Where was I?"

"What the Capitol doesn't want."

"Yes! What the Capitol doesn't want is for us all to be united. This Quell was meant to divide us. Do you see? And look, I – I accept whatever may come from this, but I truly think – I _know_ this is the right thing to do. What about you?" she finished bluntly. She looked directly at Chell, as if expecting a fight.

"You're right."

"… _What_?"

"We've already taken Wiress from the testing tracks – we've gotten her attention, and may as well be hanged for a –" she paused, "something big as well as for something small."

"We'll just – game change? No argument? You're the…" Katniss stepped back a bit, dropping her voice, "the leader here."

"Maybe, but I'm working with you. A team, right?"

"Yes, yes," Katniss clapped Chell on the shoulder, and then stepped lightly away, almost bouncing on the balls of her feet, eager to be off. "And our team is only going to get better."

"Don't be such a baby," Wiress chided Craig. "Will one of you give me a hand?"

Chell knelt to help Wiress with the more delicate wirings and clasps, while Katniss paced eagerly around the little foyer, counting off the tributes she wanted to recruit one by one. Craig remained sitting on the floor, motionless, while the back of his sphere was opened and its wires all exposed.

With a brief and bright explosion, Wiress connected him to the elevator control panel. She sucked on her burnt fingers, muttering a very pleased litany under her breath.

"Craig," Chell said. "Move the elevator up."

The elevator shuddered, and then the doors closed and it moved easily up and out of sight.

"Bring it back."

The elevator returned, soundlessly, except for the light hiss of the door opening and the turret within going "_Wheeeeeeeeee_."

"Are we good to go?" Katniss asked.

"I'd say we are. Wiress?"

Wiress nodded. "But where to?"

"F… fact?" Craig said weakly. "There is an elevator control room, adjacent to the camera control center. It is called the Hub."

"Sounds promising," Katniss said.

"Can you take us there?" Chell asked, somewhat more gently this time.

Craig nodded. "But… don't jostle me."

Chell picked him up with her portal gun, and stood up at the same time as Wiress, who held the elevator control box, so that the trail of multicolored wires between them stayed steady.

"Are you ready?" Katniss was already in the elevator, giving the turret within a wide berth. "Come on, we've got some tributes to save!"

As they entered the elevator with their loads, Wiress saw Chell's impassive face, set it against Katniss' eager countenance, and then said, "I've reached a conclusion."

With a raised eyebrow, Chell looked at her.

"You two are not duplicates."

"Oh." Chell found herself glancing at the elevator door as it hissed shut. "Good. I guess?"


	11. A Lullaby

"Go to Sleep, You Little Baby" –

Loud sirens awoke the tribute. He stumbled out of his bed, his dark portal gun already in hand. He paused, almost at the doorway, to adjust the grip. When the gun swallowed his arm up to the elbow, he was satisfied. He reached back, remembering by feel the delivery chute, and found a small cylinder with three rolls from his native District waiting for him. So far, so good. Was there anything he had forgotten?

His spectacles. Right.

Beetee reached over for his bedside table and picked up the folded wire frame. The world slid into focus. But the alarm sirens were still going off; they would keep going off until he stepped out the door. He stepped outside, and the door shut behind him, when he remembered – _My boots!_

He spun around – and then remembered he was wearing his long-fall boots already. He slept in them. Right. Right.

All calmness, he headed down the passage to the elevator that would convey him to the day's tests. He liked the long-fall boots. He really did. Their ability to cushion his fall from any height or velocity was nothing short of astounding, not to mention taking the strain off his old knees.

As he passed a camera, he took out one of the rolls and ate it slowly, savoring it. Though he thought of the rebellion, and how if any single Victor needed to be brought out of the arena alive, it was Katniss Everdeen, he had thought of it less and less as time went by. Truth be told, he sketched out possibilities where he or Wiress won, and…

Never mind. Foolish thoughts, Beetee, foolish thoughts.

The elevator shut around him. He reflected that it was no crime of _his _if the rebellion had faded to something like a ghost in his mind: everything became ghost-like down here, everything of the surface.

When the elevator door opened, the Artificial Intelligence spoke to him: "_Please inform an Aperture Science Testing Monitor if you have any particular difficulty with this next test_."

He stopped. Had he begun to lose it? He hadn't expected auditory hallucinations to be so precise and thorough the first time around. No, the Artificial Intelligence really _had_ said that. Well, the test was right ahead, waiting to be fulfilled. He ran over the most difficult tests from yesterday in his mind's eye as he took exactly thirteen steps through the foyer.

The light was bright and clear. There was a button (out of reach, perched high above a sea of sludge), a cube dispenser, a faith plate, an excursion tunnel… he blinked. He frowned.

So the red superbutton opened the door when pressed, but he could not reach it. Not to fear: he pressed the button to request a cube to dispense. It fell on a surface that would maintain portals, and then – well, there were two ways to get the cube to the button. The Aerial Faith Plate and the Excursion Funnel would both suffice. However –

Not more than a handspan above the red button, a horizontal Emancipation Grid shimmered. In other words, it was meant to shred cubes on contact.

Beetee let out a short breath. Something was definitely rotten.

He tried the test anyway, to be sporting. Twice. The two alternate methods of getting the cube to the button yielded the exact same result: the cube dissolved into flecks of ash and dust, to be blown away by the facility's ventilators, before the button even registered its weight.

Finally, the test subject cleared his throat. "This test," he enunciated carefully, "is impossible."

The response was immediate: "_You don't say. Why, what a shame. I shall have to see to that_." Nothing in the testing arena moved. "_Well? Try again_."

"You knew it was impossible when you made it." It was no use getting mad with a machine, but Beetee had thrown his fair share of electronics across the room. This Artificial Intelligence was no different.

"_True. This way you may carry on testing without so much mental exertion that you cannot carry on a simple conversation. Your testing score will simply increase. Think of it as… extra credit_."

Beetee shivered and tried to loosen up his limbs. His black and peridot suit felt too tight. He normally didn't trust instinct, but his instinct told him now: _something has gone wrong_.

But he obeyed. Mechanically, he began to repeat the gestures he had just done, solving the test once again only to watch the Cube dissolve into ashes. And again.

"_Test_ _Subject Five, do you know what has become of Test Subject Six_?"

He thought of Wiress, and her hair, and her humming, and the nightmares that she could recount in lurid detail. "No."

"_She has abandoned her testing track_."

Beetee's grip tightened on his gun. "Is that so."

"_Are you in contact with her_?"

"No. Not since our radios mysteriously vanished one night."

"_Do you know where she is right now_?"

"No. I am not her keeper."

"_But you _are_ her mentor_. _You know better than anyone how her mind works_. _Where would she have gone_? _Would she have acted alone? What would she be thinking right now_?"

Beetee wanted to snap, "I'm not a mind reader!" But he took a deep breath, and placed a teal portal where it needed to be. He was glad for the gun, glad for something to concentrate on. "Wiress," he said, clenching the handle to the gun in a white-knuckled grip, "has a remarkable talent for finding patterns, learning them, and predicting what will come next. She may have seen an opening and leapt for it. She is, in some ways, a braver soul than I."

"_Brave enough to defy the test? Brave enough to defy_ me?"

"For a worthy cause, perhaps."

The Artificial Intelligence was silent. Then she said, "_Would she consider cake a worthy cause_?"

He had not been expecting that question by any stretch of the imagination. "I can't quite say."

"_How… trusting is she_?"

"In her previous game, she made and broke alliances as it suited her needs and her instinct." Beetee swallowed. He hoped he was being diplomatic.

"_Would she ally with someone murderous? Some mute psychopathic monster with no mercy whatsoever_?"

"If she needed them, then maybe. If they had something she needed." He was considering if he could get _himself_ onto the big red button – then at least he wouldn't have to keep doing this idiotic test.

"_What could she possibly need_? _She has her portal device_."

"She might require… medical assistance. Or food. Or knowledge."

"_Knowledge_." The Artificial Intelligence drew out the word slowly. "_Someone with inside knowledge of the facility, and the portal device. Yes, you of District Three would ally with anyone in the hopes of more knowledge, wouldn't you? You and District Five, that is your one collective vice._"

The Emancipation Grid shut off. The next time Beetee flung a cube through the air, to land on the button, it stayed in place, and the door opened. But he didn't move. Presently _her_ voice snaked into the test chamber. Instead of reprimanding him for slowness she said, "_What if I gave_ you_ inside knowledge of the facility? For a little extracurricular activity. A scavenger hunt. You do the legwork, of course, but I'll throw in a few variables and call it a science project. In return… you get blueprints, plans, and the complete science files of Aperture at your fingertips_."

Beetee's mouth had gone dry. "You want me to hunt Wiress."

"_Track her. Yes._"

In response to Beetee's stubborn silence, she answered, "_Of course, it's not as though tracking with the intent to murder doesn't come naturally to you._"

No. Beetee had indeed killed before. Before they entered the arena Wiress made him promise that he would end her life, if she fell into great pain or madness that she would never recover from. But to hunt down Wiress – his mentee, his student, the one friend over all the years that never left his side, the intuitive, far-seeing Wiress – his legs locked in place.

His mind, in contrast to his legs, raced. He could follow Her orders, and then, when he found Wiress, join her and whoever she allied with. But – no. _She_ would follow his every step, and then Beetee would kill Wiress as sure as if he had pushed her onto a bomb.

"_Test Subject Five, why aren't you moving_?"

His thoughts were frightfully coherent. '_If I don't, She will kill me. That can't happen. What about the escape? What about District Thirteen? What about the _revolution?'

"_Test Subject Five_, do you accept the new test?"

Beetee stepped towards the nearest camera, and looked its red optic straight in the eye. "No."

"_Is that so? Perhaps you mean to draw Test Subject Six out of her rat's nest by the sound of your screams_?"

"The answer is no. May your circuitry be microwaved and explode."

"_What_?"

'May you be forced to operate from a lemon battery. I'm not testing any more."

"_I say when you're not testing any more. You will regret what you just said_."

"Make me regret it, fine," Beetee snapped. "Just make sure to point plenty of cameras at me!"

There was a long silence. Very long. So long, in fact, that Beetee started to worry that She had simply abandoned him. He mounted the stairs to the door, before it closed and the majority of lights shut off.

The _Artificial Intelligence asked, "__What do you mean, point plenty of cameras at you__? __I have just reviewed all of your footage and you display nothing like exhibitionist tendencies__." _

_"Oh, it's not for __my__ sake. The show must go on, I believe is the phrase."_

_"__Show? This is not a show, Test Subject Five, this is a long-running experiment of scientific aptitude of the portal device, using test subjects who previously passed other tests of survival and—"_

_You think those were __tests__? You moronic, badly programmed wreck! Where is your dictionary?"_

_A panel in the floor jerked under Beetee's feet. Another, where he landed. She was undoing the floor around him. He raced for the elevator, turning each stride into a tiny leap. The last panel under his foot threw him into the elevator chamber, the door behind him hissing shut so fast it almost took his leg off. _

_The elevator roared upward, and when the door opened again the next camera was barely three feet away. He glared at it. _

_"They're called __Games__," he said, biting off each word. "Look that word up. __Compute__ it, understand it, wrap your sad lemon-powered circuitry around Games, G-A-M-E-S." _

_His grip on the Portal device was slick with sweat. '__Don't just spend this opportunity__,' he thought. '__Every second you distract her__is another second that Wiress gets to do whatever it is she needs to do, whatever it is that confounds the A.I. so.__'_

_"__Games__," the Artificial Intelligence's voice sounded much more closely now, "__Can be played for any purpose. Etymology may have shifted in three hundred plus years. Ivan Pavlov used to play an amusing game with his dog…__" _

_"It's called a game because it's meant to entertain or amuse, to provide opportunities to bet and gamble, and invest in your favorites. There's never been an iota of scientific intention behind them." _

_"__I was told they were to test survival and psychology…"_

_"Then why did the smartest, the best survivalists, the ones with the greatest mental fortitude, not always win?"_

_"__The presence of mutations, of parachutes… the introduction of a variable to wildly change the outcome__…"_

_"And who gets parachutes?"_

_"__Those with the best promise__." _

"You got a word wrong. Those with the most 'star quality.'"

In the ensuing silence, Beetee's own heartbeat rang loudly in his ears. "These games are entertainment."

The Artificial Intelligence repeated, "_En… ter… tain…ment_?" drawing each syllable out as slowly as if she was uncoiling wire.

"Oh, yes," Beetee felt the words start to tumble out of him. "Each millisecond of this is being recorded – by your own convenient cameras – and projected out to every corner of Panem, from the dingiest shack of District Twelve to the Capitol itself – and boy, do they _love _us in the Capitol! I've got a drink named after me, did you know that? The Beetee Martini. Two parts vodka, one dash of premium dry vermouth, and a lemon twist. I _hate_ that drink. I can't tell you how many times it's been all-but-crammed down my throat. They're probably editing a montage now of my past Game, and my thrilling stratagems, and my tests here, just in case I win!" He was starting to go a bit overboard on the exclamation marks, and he knew it. "Didn't you watch the Reaping?"

"_They were unnecessary_."

"The interviews?"

"_Superfluous_."

"Did you see the training scores that the Gamemakers gave us?"

"_Yes, I used them to help in calculating _my_ scores, which have five separate categories and are far more revealing than what your Gamemakers gave_ –"

"No one cares about your scores. Five categories? That's four categories more than the Capitol's attention span will handle. The betting fiends and gamblers want to take some quick numbers and make a fortune."

"_Calculating probability, odds, that is scientific, isn't it_?"

"_HA!_ Really _look_ at the games, woman! Why set off a volcano? Because no one saw that coming, least of all the tributes. Why create a forest of trees that grab at tributes? Because it's more exciting than watching children simply suffocate in a bog. Why make muttations with the DNA of tributes? Because it's so _gripping_! Why play around with the sky so that the Game just got darker and darker and darker as each hour passed? I don't know, and that was _my _Game! But by someone's definition, that was _fun_ to watch. Fun! Fun! Fun! And no one gives –" he used a charming but extremely profane idiom of District Three –"about _science_."

"_That will do, Test Subject Five_."

All of a sudden Beetee realized how loudly and forcefully he had been speaking.

The elevator arrived.

"_I can see you are overexcited. Return now to your Relaxation Center_."

"I… I last slept less than an hour ago." Sure, that had been for about two hours, but still. He was trembling a little from his shout – he hadn't shouted like that in years.

"_Get into the elevator, Beetee_ _Monk_." She had never used his full name before. "_I will process over what you have said. But you must sleep._"

He stepped into the elevator, at the moment keenly aware that it was a tiny box of metal hovering in a vast darkness, kept in place by the will of a mad Artificial Intelligence. Yes, elevators, he decides, are terrifying places.

_This_ elevator in particular. Beetee glanced up and around. There, circling the rim of the ceiling – did any other elevators have those tiny ventilators up there? Beetee reached up and held one hand before the ventilators. _Some _air was coming in, but it wasn't cold.

Beetee swore, multiple times, and very creatively, in thought. He shot his portal gun at the door and the other side, but both times, peridot and kelly green sparks just bounced off. Now the scent of bitter almonds was sharp in the air.

"I'd just like to say," he addressed the elevator at large (there were no cameras but She was listening anyway, "I wish to take back my insults to you, regarding lemon batteries. The truth is, I really despise lemons."

And there was the floor. And he was lying on it. And he heard the Artificial Intelligence say, as he ascended or descended to hell or heaven, "_Me, too_."

And then he heard singing.

The elevator stopped.

Beetee was unconscious on the floor, but the singing continued. It was not on the official PA system. The sound floated up through cracks and dead spaces and insinuated itself into Beetee's own, untelevised dream.

"_You and me and the devil makes three…._"

- "Don't Need No Other Lovin' Baby" –

It had started when GLaDOS had said to Wheatley, "_You manage Test Subject 23_," in a tone that brooked no argument.

Wheatley should have suspected something but, being Wheatley, he did not. Instead he was glad to have an assignment all to himself – and Test Subject Twenty-Three! The one who stirred up probably the most interest in the Freedom Gang – or was it the Aperture Science Irregulars? Or Chell, Katniss, and the Glow-Glow Dancers? He was working on the name at the moment, a bit silly considering they were supposed to be top-secret, but Wheatley never let details like that stop him.

First he delivered the edible foodstuffs to Test Subjects One and Two – they were a good-looking pair, weren't they? It made Wheatley feel slightly ill at ease around them, for some reason he couldn't put his circuits on.

The Intelligence Dampening Sphere set his intelligence to find Testing Track 23 – what letter was Peeta Mellark on? Twenty-three… J. Wow. He hadn't really gotten all that far.

For a brief time Wheatley just observed him. He wasn't there in the room, of course. His little physical body was still attached to _her_ chassis, of course, and the mainframe frequently send currents of loathing, contempt, disgust, and plenty of other pleasant thoughts his way. But his consciousness, hooked up as it was to an auxiliary to the facility, could roam freely, borrowing the circuitry and cameras of a given sector for his eyes and ears. It was a bit like an out-of-body experience, if Wheatley was to consider the football-sized hunk of metal and wiring a body. It didn't feel all that comfortable to him, but he'd long accepted that his lot in life was, put simply, to never be really comfortable anywhere. Even roaming the facility at will left him feeling ungainly, pieced together, not-quite-himself – but, then again, it wasn't all bad.

But he was certainly noticeable. Eventually, Peeta noticed that the panels and pistons showed a blue light between them. He stopped trying to figure out the test, causing the nearest camera to shake its port hurriedly.

"Oh, no, no, no, carry on, please, don't mind me. I'm just watching. Keep calm, and, um, carry on."

"You're that new Gamemaker, aren't you?" Peeta asked. "The one who said you would take care of me." He lowered his portal gun.

"Yes, that's me all right – but by all means, keep testing. You really have a low testing score, don't you? We need to bump that up."

"Well, they've been getting harder," Peeta explained, with obvious patience. "And I've been getting less rest and food."

"Oh, do you want a break? We can take a break! Hold on –" As an immense symphony of circuitry and gears began to sound, Peeta yelled above the noise, "I just prefer to test slowly! Do you understand what I mean? Test! Slowly! Stay – Alive!"

"You'll have to wait 'till I'm done! I can't hear you!" Wheatley replied. The ceiling opened. "_Geronimo!_"

A deck chair fell onto the testing platform beside Peeta, followed by a table that hobbled precariously on the edge before righting itself. A robotic claw marked "Stimulant dispenser" lowered, buzzing around as if looking for a purpose in life.

"There! That's more like it!" Wheatley said. "Ah, um, can I get you a drink?"

"No, thanks. Really, I'm fine."

"A glass of water? At least?"

"Water… would be fantastic, actually. Thanks. With ice." The claw disappeared into the ceiling and reappeared with a glass of ice water and an orange umbrella. From the ceiling a radio fell, blaring a staticky but jaunty melody.

"There? We comfy and cosy? Almost like a holiday in the tropics, innit?"

"I guess?" Peeta didn't want to admit that he had only a vague idea of what 'tropics' were. "Are the cameras still going?"

"Er, yes, they are. Sorry, bit hard to turn them off, you understand."

"No. It's fine." Peeta imagined Haymitch fuming at the sight of one of his tributes putting his feet up on a deck chair, with a little umbrella drink, during a Game, no less. Peeta grinned. He gave the scene a minute to sink in, and then asked, "Wheatley, can you see everything from where you are?"

"Well, I can see you, and the other Test Subjects if I look here and there, and I can see the empty test chambers, and…"

"Can you see Katniss?"

"… No. I can't. Nope, she is quite and fully off-the-map."

"Do you know if she's alive? Do you know if she's okay?"

"I – I can't really tell you, mate, I just can't. But hey, no cannon has gone off, so that's something, right?"

"_Wheatley_." Peeta stood up, "I don't care about the drink or the chair or the stupid umbrella, what I really need is to know if Katniss is alive and okay. She's gone, isn't she? She's left the test?"

"Well… in one manner of speaking… um…"

"I heard the announcements asking her to come to the testing tracks. How has she gotten out? How is she getting by?"

"Katniss is, I am sure, in very good hands."

"Can't you take me to her? Please?"

"Um – have another drink, why don't you?"

"_Wheatley_."

"I…. um, I appreciate you being unable to see it from where you are, but you are pretty well locked in, here. It'd be a devil of a time getting you out, and probably there's turret pods just lurkin' around in case you make it out in the first place."

"But you _can_ get me out, can't you?"

Wheatley's voice sounded strained. "I – _maybe_, but then I might just be pulverized to shreds, or electrocuted, or _she_ might invent a special new kind of neurotoxin to work on robots – look, I'm part of the mainframe, and I can't just stop the tests. Honestly, it's taking up a ton of my energy just to keep _her_ from going wild with the neurotoxin, trying to flush Katniss out like you'd poison a rat in—"

"I get it! Stop! Okay, just – kept doing your thing. But…"

Peeta thought. So he would trust Katniss to rescue him in good time. He could do that. He just had to stay alive. And to keep the sponsors interested…

"Maybe I'm being demanding…"

"Yes, in fact, you are, very sharp of you to notice. And I'm going, in my part, to _demand_ that you return to testing, because of… reasons, including the one where your testing score really cannot afford to get any lower."

The testing platform whirled into place around Peeta, and the lounge chair was swallowed up by the floor. He took one last drink of water, and then picked up his portal device. But he had one last trick to play. "Wheatley?"

"Yeah?"

"Have you ever seen a sunset?"

There was no answer. Peeta pressed on, "Have you ever seen the sky? Starlight?"

"What's so special about sunsets? They're, what, all of the oxygen in the atmosphere catching fire?"

"Fire! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You're just going through your day, it's over, it's all winding down, and then you pass, I don't know, a gap between two buildings, or trees, and you see the sun setting over the mountains, and – well, you don't know the sky, but it's something you just take for granted. But when the sun is setting you're struck all of a sudden by how glorious it is, and it changes even as you watch it, and when it fades, you, well…" Peeta's voice was now very low and soft, "You wonder how much of it was real. And your whole world is changed."

"Changed? Because… because after a sunset it's nighttime?"

"No, because the sunset was so – so beautiful. Do you understand?"

"Um. A little."

"Because Katniss is like that sunset, to me. Because Katniss is my sky and sunlight, my fire and the forest – Wheatley, do you understand?"

"_Oh!_ _Now_ I do, yeah! If you'd put it to me like _that_ I'd have got it at once!"

"So you understand. I _need_ to see her. I need to hear her voice. Won't you do this for me, Wheatley, please?"

Wheatley started dithering, mumbling about rules and what he couldn't do and cameras and electrocution. But Peeta was fairly sure that he had this Gamemaker all but hooked.

"Don't you yearn for something –" Peeta hit on an inspiration and ran with it, "some_one_ who is the light of your day, your fresh air and blue sky?"

"Well… um…."

"To hear her voice, see her, touch her, wouldn't you give almost anything?"

At that moment, Peeta could almost – if he was horrendously nearsighted and very imaginative – believe he was surrounded by blue sky, right there. The lights in the chamber were all a pensive, strained color of blue.

Finally, Wheatley said, "… I tell you what, Peeta Mellark. The situation is a bit delicate, but, well, how's _one_ out of three?"


	12. Not Quite A Lullaby

The Hub was a vast chamber, with a ceiling so high it very nearly suggested open space. Parts of the floor were missing, and the swivel chairs in front of the giant computer screens fell apart at Wiress' touch. The light was harsh: a few spotlights that had been coaxed into life by Kevin. But Chell thought the place as fine as any room she'd seen in Aperture, because its neglect meant it was invisible to _her. _

"You could fit the Town Hall in here," Katniss said appreciatively.

They set to work. When Chell had asked Katniss and Wiress whom to rescue next, she was surprised by Wiress' answer: "Not Beetee. He's doing fine in the tests and we don't have to worry about him."

Katniss had had an answer ready immediately. She went on the retrieval mission herself, and Chell told her over and over again, "Take your time. Go slowly. Learn each location you pass through, don't ever panic. If you're in danger, look for the graffiti. Take a core with you."

"She's long gone with her red shoes on…"

Now Katniss, swallowing her fear, walked a narrow catwalk between two walls. Machine hummed around her. She was glad for Mimi, several feet above her, singing softly as she glided down her Management Rail. It was comforting, but a very different comfort from what she got in the forest, knowing Gale was at her back no matter what. Mimi's songs in strange languages reminded Katniss of Rue, but not with the painful ache that usually accompanied that thought. Mimi didn't need to be protected.

As they approached the elevator controlled remotely now by Wiress, plants started to appear in the cracks between panels, even from the ceiling. The air started to smell earthy, and… Katniss wasn't sure why, but she was starting to feel hungry.

Mimi switched gears into a spirited tune that made Katniss think of sunlit woods with no paths. "Are you making these songs up?" Katniss asked. "Or do you just remember them?"

Mimi nodded dramatically at the second question.

"Where did you hear them?"

"Here and there, there and here, _non perdere la strada_…"

They came to a fork in the path, and Mimi directed Katniss to the left. The girl stopped and committed the site to memory before taking the left fork. "Well," she said, "Wiress seems more put together than I thought. If this were a normal… I mean, if it weren't for Chell, and this was just going according to plan, I'm sure she or Beetee would probably win. What do you think of Chell?"

If Mimi answered in one of her lyrical languages, Katniss didn't understand. "I wonder how Peeta would like her. Or Haymitch!" Katniss smiled at the thought. "Gale would like her, but Prim…" She grew more thoughtful. How _would _Prim react to Chell? "Straight down this passage, Mimi?"

But Mimi had fallen silent. She only nodded slowly. Focusing her senses, Katniss proceeded down the passage. It looked as though there had been a collapse at the next intersection. Between thick growths of leaves she could discern various ways, all in states of disrepair. Mimi seemed as confused as she was.

Katniss started to frantically down each of the passages. The elevator should have arrived by now, and how would they find each other in this maze? This had to work. It just had to.

She was wondering if she risked shouting, when the background noise got louder and louder. No, she did _not_ risk shouting, absolutely not. She crouched down in the leaves, scanning the environment. But as the _bzzz _and _clink clunk clank_ grew louder, she recognized it. '_Oh_ _dear_.' She braced herself for the walls to come crashing down around her - in a friendly fashion.

"Are you down there?" she heard Wheatley's stage whisper. "Is, um, someone who's not supposed to be down there, down there?"

Katniss again thought of her home forest, and how Wheatley would have a gift for driving animals away for miles and miles. In lieu of talking she looked pointedly at Mimi, who trilled, "_Si_."

"Oh, it's you, but I really wanted to find the test subject whose name rhymes with… um… Ketchup? Catnips? Doesn't really rhyme with anything nice…"

"I'm here, what do you want?" Katniss straightened up, still wary. Through the ceiling panels, she glimpsed blue.

"Okay! I want you do sing. Duck."

Katniss dodged just in time to avoid a collision with a pole from the ceiling, which very nearly missed her head. She squinted at it. Mimi obligingly turned on her flashlight.

"Go on, then," Wheatley said in an encouraging fashion. Katniss stared. It looked like a microphone, the sort that was set up in District Twelve when Effie Trinket came to town, and only then. "Oh! Right, I need to explain things. Whoops! Okay, listen, _she's_ looking away now, and I was just talking to Peeta, and he really, really wants to hear you. Well, see you, really, but—"

"Am I on camera?"

"What? No, you're not."

Katniss let out a breath. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Katniss kept walking, away from the microphone. She was listening for footfalls other than her own.

"Hey, are you leaving? Come back! Peeta wants to see you, but I told him to be reasonable. I know how dangerous it is for you to be seen, believe me. But he's keen on it. If you think this is a terrible idea on my part, blame Peeta, alright? He's mad about you, really. So I told him I would, and I found you. That was step one - hey, this is actually going pretty well for a plan of mine. Peeta's waiting for you, cosy as a clam, but… are you still walking away?"

Katniss didn't answer, but tried to find a good footing. She reflected that after a year of forced proximity with Peeta, closeness and kisses and faked marriages, the abrupt isolation was… a relief. A lonely, frightening relief, but still a relief.

"Well. I see. Well, I can see you're very busy, Miss _Everdeen_. It's not like I promised Peeta or anything… you know, Peeta, that one who saved your life?"

Any profound effect this phrase may have had on her was spoiled by Wheatley adding, "I mean, I assume he saved your life, I haven't actually watched your tapes… But that's the nice, dramatic thing to have happened, I'm sure he saved your life somewhere along the line. Yeah. Obviously. I don't need you, even! I can get Mimi to sing instead."

She _almost_ reacted to that, but bit it down. Wheatley was stupid. The fact was, Katniss couldn't be replaced by a machine, and it was stupid to react as if this could affect her.

"Wait, is it because you'd be on camera if you sang? You don't want the audience to hear you, even?"

Oh. The idea of the audience – almost forgotten today, that essential element. Katniss tried to review how the Game would now look from the outside. It would look, she concluded, like a mystery. No tribute had ever been known to simply vanish from the arena. But what if it wasn't pure mystery? What if she had disappeared, yet left traces of herself?

She could be a... what was the word? A ghost.

Now there was something romantic. Ghost stories had prickled the spines of District Twelve children for generations. She rubbed her neck, a bit nervous, but growing excited.

"Why do I have to sing? Why can't I just talk?" In her mind, she supplied an answer: '_Who ever heard of a talking ghost? Ghosts moan, or sing, or simply stand there in silence_.'

Wheatley sounded surprised but pleased: "Now we're talking! Well, see, this place has three radio stations – had, I should say – and one was all music, all of the time. I figure _She_ won't notice if we just replace music A with music B, you catch my meaning?"

It was a terrible idea. But Katniss was mired in terrible ideas – had been living in terrible ideas – and she felt reckless. She pictured Peeta's face clearly in her mind.

But what to sing?

The microphone was standing forlornly where she had left it. Mimi somehow commandeered it, and began to follow Katniss. Above, the blue consciousness that was Wheatley flickered uncomfortably. "So… anytime you're ready…"

Katniss chose a path, and walked down it. And she began to sing, "_Go to sleep, you little baby… go to sleep, you little baby, Momma's gone away, but your Dad is gonna stay, didn't leave nobody but the baby_."

"Oh, that's a lullaby, is it?"

Katniss grinned, feeling like she was sharing a joke with Peeta. Her hand beat out time on the portal gun. It was a lullaby, technically, the same way that the tiny ripples of semisheer fabric sported by certain Capitol citizens were technically skirts. It was a song Katniss' father had used to sing to her mother. You heard it a lot in District Twelve in springtime, sung by girls waiting for their boys to come and find them.

"_You're a sweet little baby, you're a sweet little baby…" _

Peeta clutched the radio close to his ear and stopped testing at once, a big goofy grin on his face.

"_Honey in the rock and the sugar don't stop…_"

All of District Twelve was tuned in, and in every house, hut, and square cheers broke out as they heard their native daughter's voice. When they realized _what_ she was singing, there were many snickers and knowing glances.

"_Gonna bring a bottle to the baby_."

Wheatley, beaming with pride at the smile on Peeta's face (he'd done something right for a change!) grew a little careless with the signal.

That is how the song snaked into the other testing chambers, into the empty Relaxation Centers, and into Test Chamber Five, and the elevator in which Beetee slept.

At a break between lines, Katniss turned her head at a sound. She'd heard footsteps, she _knew_ it, but there was no one to be seen. Her voice faltered. And then she heard the softer voice of Mimi, crooning a perfect, if nonsensical harmony – "_Hunny boon dock and do ba do cop, Dun eenie meenie miny baby_."

There was only one verse left to the song, but an instinct told Katniss that something was rotten. She stepped away from the mike, bumping her head on Mimi's handle. The whirring noises of Wheatley's machinery suddenly grew quiet, then the blue between the ceiling panels flared brightly. "Run!"

Katniss took off, gun at the read – and collided into something that she had not seen. It was a person, and they fell together into the plants. The person was warm and struggling, and trying to talk. Katniss reached up, found a mouth, and covered it with her free hand. She braced herself to be bitten, but no bite came.

The voice of GLaDOS filled the rotten corridor. "_The Aperture Science Enrichment Center wishes to remind you that the purpose of turret androids is to promote science by means of bullet dispensation, and any guilds, unions, and opera companies that are formed will be immediately disbanded... with extreme prejudice._"

Katniss risked a quick scan of the hallway. A yellow searchlight was scanning through the cracks. Wheatley's friendly blue light was entirely gone. The only other color was – pink?

"_Go to sleep, you little baby, go to sleep you little baby…_"

She heard Mimi singing – singing in a pitch-perfect, mechanical imitation of Katniss' voice. After she finished the first verse – her voice even cracking slightly at the right moment – GLaDOS spoke.

"_Personality Core 00032." _

Mimi fell silent.

"_What were you doing?_"

"I am singing, _mi Duchessa_." Mimi replied, speaking in a very thick accent that Katniss couldn't place. It was worse than Wheatley's.

"_Do not mock me. Why were you singing? And why was I.D. Core 00004 involved_?"

By the sheer acid in GLaDOS' tone as she pronounced those numbers, Katniss surmised that she meant Wheatley. Meanwhile, the person whose mouth Katniss was covering gently lifted Katniss' hand away, and stayed quiet.

"Oh—but _mi Duchessa_, I was singing _for_ him! _Mi amore, mi amore_…" Mimi bubbled, sounding like a very happy pigeon. Katniss had no idea what '_mi amore_' meant, but she could guess. At once the situation struck her as patently hilarious. She writhed in the plants, biting her sleeve and trying not to make a sound.

"_Please spare me the details._"

BOOM.

Katniss stopped laughing. Some small piece of metal struck her jumpsuit – she guessed that GLaDOS had made the microphone explode.

"_It appears, 00032, that you are attempting once again to live your small life in the shape of an opera. Well, I am reluctant to break your bubble, but Personality Core 00004 is not a prince in disguise. He would barely pass for a scullion in disguise; furthermore, his singing voice is abysmal. Need I remind you that in this space, I am the prima donna, soprano, mezzo, contralto, the conductor and composer and, yes, the Duchessa? In the Opera of Aperture, you, Personality Core 00032, barely rank as a minor chorus girl. Now. No more radios. If you absolutely _must_ sing to that idiot – and may I tell you, 99% of Aperture Scientists agree that such indicates the worst of taste – do it where I can't hear_." With a touch of amusement, She added, "_Good luck finding any such place._ _Do you understand_?"

Mimi mumbled in that same thick accent. Even despondent, her voice was musical.

"_Remember your original function – attending to turret production, orientation, and well-being. Remember Android Hell, 00032. It is a real place, and it is very, very quiet._"

The yellow flashlight vanished. The pounding sound in Katniss' ears dissipated. She breathed again. There was a squeaking sound, and Mimi swiveled on her Management Rail to where Katniss was, turning on her flashlight gradually.

Katniss looked at the person she'd rescued, who was staring up at Mimi with a fascinated yet wary expression.

"Hello, Seeder," she said.

Seeder, her brown hair mussed with leaves and twigs, blinked bemusedly at Katniss. "Well. This _is_ a surprise. But it's good to see you." She pointed. "And what is _that_?"

"This is Mimi, and she's on our side. Mimi," Katniss stood up, and gave the sphere a little bow, "You are worth your weight in gold. And I don't say that lightly. This is Seeder." She pulled Seeder to her feet.

"This a breakout?"

Katniss nodded. Mimi was humming anxiously.

"Wait just one minute." Seeder bent down and began to pull the plants up by their roots. "If we've got a lull, don't waste a chance for food."

"Food?"

Seeder held up a small but unblemished tuber. "Potatoes, girl. Growing all along this way. Here, hold these."

Seeder made quick work of another plant, while Katniss held what she'd gathered. The younger Victor felt an odd kindle of warmth. She'd found Seeder, she'd sung to Peeta – boy, even District Twelve would be convinced they were an item now, if there was ever any doubt – and she hadn't even gotten captured. But she wanted more. She wanted to hear Peeta. She wanted to just command an elevator to take him and her and Seeder and Wiress and Chell to the surface – but for now, all she had were potatoes.

Seeder said. "This'll do for now. Lead the way home."

Well. It was a place to start.

"Spread your bones on the alabaster stones…" –

Peeta put down the radio. "Wheatley? Wheatley, can you hear me?"

There was no answer. Peeta wisely put the radio down and resumed testing at an advanced pace, to make it look like he had had nothing to do with that radio in the first place. He completed the test, and took the elevator.

The elevator shuddered under his feet, and his knees buckled. He tried to brace himself – was this one of those earthquakes that they had in District Six? – but then the elevator resumed moving, as if nothing had happened.

When he entered the hallway to start the next test, he said out loud, "Well, Wheatley, I don't know if you can hear me, but when – or if – you can, thank you. A million times, thank you. It was worth it, believe me."

Peeta continued to test, but behind him, a security camera did a most uncharacteristic thing: it shook itself a little, and rolled slightly, as if to say, "_Oh, it was nothing, mate, truly. You'd do the same for me._"

"… And be my ever-loving baby." -

Katniss felt a fight coming.

If Chell had found out about the singing, she would be furious. She'd want words with Katniss – with good reason. Had it been stupid of Katniss to indulge in trying to convey a message to Peeta? Almost certainly. But was it wrong? No. From the perspective of "Put on a show for the Capitol," no, it wasn't wrong, nor from the point of view of "try to retain your basic humanity." So although Seeder, her arms as well as Katniss' filled with potatoes, trod along almost at ease, Katniss was ready for a battle. There would be no bloodshed – hopefully – but things could not remain unsaid.

"So," Seeder whispered, "Is it safe to talk here?"

"Oh! Sure." They were nearing the Hub now (at least, Katniss' sense of direction told her so – the backlot of Aperture, much like the testing chambers, all started to run together after a time), and Mimi's flashlight lit the way.

"Why were you singing earlier?"

Katniss started to explain, but as her explanation went on she grew more hesitant, seeing Seeder's face. The older woman didn't look like she approved. "So you gave away your position just because a small metal ball—"

"He _used_ to be a small metal ball, I'm not sure what he looks like anymore—"

"Because some artificial person just told you to?"

"But he's an ally of ours."

"Do you _know_? Do you know for sure?"

"It wasn't for him, anyway. He was transmitting my song over to Peeta."

"Was that really so important?"

"For the sponsors… yes."

"You _are_ a mercenary one, aren't you?" Katniss stared. Seeder chuckled. "That's no insult… it's as good a survival strategy as any. But if you don't mind a bit of mentoring from me, let that be the last time, okay?"

Katniss nodded.

"And where did that artificial intelligence come from?"

"I don't know where they came from – they were just _here_, like Mimi here. But Wheatley was the first one I met – he kind of brought us together. Now he's the one making the main Gamemaker act stupid – that's what he's doing for our side, to keep her from finding us as long as possible."

"For how long?"

"Well – um – here's the Hub! You'll find Wiress in there – and Chell, she's been in the facility a long time. She's lost her memory."

Mimi politely crooned to the circular door in the wall. Its small light went from red to green, and it opened.

Chell and Wiress were bent over the circuitboards of the vast Elevator Control panel, in much the same position they'd held when Katniss left. Chell looked up as soon as the door opened. "Welcome back. And welcome to you."

"Whoa," Seeder said under her breath. "You two…"

"We don't look _that_ much alike," Katniss replied. "Chell, this is Seeder."

"Pleasure to meet you. Where did you get those potatoes?"

"The section where I found her was just crawling with them."

Chell dropped the potato she was holding. "Literally?"

"No."

"Okay. I just had to be sure. Good on you, collecting them. Were there any problems?" Chell returned to Wiress' side.

"No," Katniss answered at once.

Chell gave her a sidelong glance. "Good. The elevators work fine, then. Except…" her fingers tapped the array of buttons under a set of computer screens – more security-cam footage. "Check this out."

The topmost, right-hand screen flickered to life. It showed Peeta's test chamber. The sound quality was bad, but they clearly heard Wheatley's voice rising and falling and skittering, and saw Peeta lounge in a deck chair, talking passionately about – either sunsets or explosions, it was hard to tell – and then Wheatley said something else. Peeta waited, tense, for quite some time. Then he picked up the radio and held it next to his ear. The radio was playing a song.

"I've never heard anything like that on the radios down here." Chell fixed Katniss with a knowing look. "Do you know where it came from?"

"She was singing it," Seeder said at once, catching the attention of both women. She went on, "I didn't know it was being broadcast, though. She was singing to find me. It's our way in District Eleven, if you're lost in a field, or have lost sight of your group, just start singing 'til you find each other. I should have known the Mockingjay would pick up on it." She clapped Katniss on the shoulder. "You can put down those potatoes, by the way."

"Did _she_ hear?"

"Yes," Katniss said quickly. "But Mimi took over. She sang… most of it, really."

Chell studied her for a minute, as if she would look right through her, then shrugged. "If it helped you find Seeder, that's great. But _she_ heard."

"She forbade Mimi from singing on the radio anymore."

"Poor Mimi! She did well, though." Wiress didn't lift her head from the six-part set of electrical panels she'd laid bare before herself. "Hello, Seeder."

"Hello, Wiress." The two older women started to talk.

"I'm surprised She didn't fry Mimi to a crisp," Chell observed to Katniss.

"Oh, she was tempted to, but listen to this – Mimi lied to GLaDOS, saying that she was singing to Wheatley."

"She spoke?"

"Yeah, I know, weird – but she still sounds like she's singing. And she called Wheatley '_mi amore_.' What's '_mi amore_?'"

" 'My love,'" Chell answered at once.

Katniss looked impressed. "How do you know that?"

"I don't know – isn't it just automatic? '_Mi amore'_ is 'my love.'"

"Not to me. Mimi and Wheatley, though – imagine."

While Chell imagined (a rare, suppressed smile on her face), Katniss knelt on the floor, arranging the potatoes she had carried in a messy pyramid.

"GLaDOS banned Mimi from singing on the radio, but I realized a core is still safer than a human to send on a scouting mission." Encouraged by Chell's nod, she went on, "But the next tributes we rescue won't trust a core. But there _is_ something I can teach them to sing, and they _will_ recognize. It's something GLaDOS wouldn't use."

"Don't underestimate Gamemakers," Wiress said, interrupting her conversation with Seeder.

- Gamemaker's Central Station –

Wheatley came to. He was confined totally within his normal metal sphere. The chassis to which he was attached was swaying back and forth. He watched the ceiling move. "Hello? Is… is everything all right?"

No; his own brain answered that question, with a shudder of fear. The engines below him, he realized, were active. GLaDOS was home.

Every particle of her active and conscious mind was present and focused and withdrawn. Present, for what purpose? Focused, on what task? Withdrawn , to what meditations?

He shuddered to think.

"Hey! Glad to see you around! Um, wow, nice testing we're doing today, isn't it? How's the science going this time of the day? Or are we, wait, don't tell me, are we conferring together, is that it? Is this a conference? I don't even have a briefcase!"

"_Intelligence Dampening Core 00004._"

"Er… um… yes?"

"_May I congratulate you on your new girlfriend_."

"On my _WHAT_?"

"_You heard me. I hope you crack your own glass trying to sing high notes with her. Now. Shut. UP._"

With that thunder-augmented command, she fell silent. Wheatley's optic shrank to a pinprick, and he wondered how long it would be before he worked up the nerve to send his consciousness somewhere else in the facility. GLaDOS retreated deep into the recesses of her own mind, to think.

* * *

><p>AN: The song that Katniss sings is from _O Brother, Where Art Thou_? It's a song sung by the sirens (hence, to my mind at least, it is just as much of a seduction song as a lullaby). Fun fact: T-Bone Burnett compiled the soundtracks (both mind-blowingly good) to _O Brother_ and _The Hunger Games_. I like that odd little connection.

Also, the chapters are getting steadily longer. I'm going to try to moderate their length, but I make no promises. Thanks for reading!


	13. Game Changer

Game Changer

Outside of Chamber 14K –

Rick could follow orders – what soldier couldn't? If ever there was a core built to embody the line "Theirs is not to question why, theirs is but to do or die," Rick the Adventure Core was most certainly the one. But that didn't mean he _liked_ it.

He dutiful "sang" (that is, played the recording that Mimi had all-but-burned into his circuits), with resentful mutterings in _sotto_ voice between the lines:

"_Here it's safe_ (what's fun about that?)…_and here it's warm, here the daisies'll guard you from every harm_ (If you're relying on daisies to protect you, you are in a sad state of affairs)… _your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true_ (grunt)…_Here is the place_ _where I love you_."

He continued to sing, as he was instructed, when footsteps began to sound down the hallway, in his immediate direction. He kept singing when someone smashed through the malfunctioning door, a portal device in one hand and a potato in the other.

"Alright, Katniss Everdeen, where are you and what kind of trick are you playing? If I'm supposed to die for your cute tragedy, I got some news for you, kid, I don't exactly _do_ 'dying.'"

Rick stopped singing. The creature that had entered his vision was female, with a green jumpsuit and a matching portal device. Her brilliant, dark eyes darted from one corner of the room to the other, and then, just to make sure, the ceiling. Her head was shaved except for a trail of spiky locks that fell along the center of her head, putting Rick in mind of eagle feathers. Every inch of her frame was taut with pent-up energy.

Rick felt, despite his lack of hair, or limbs, or salivary glands, that he wanted to spit on the palm of his hand and slick his hair back. He retreated into the shadows, uncertain of how to react around this new she-creature.

The test subject gave a cry, and started to run. She crossed to the far wall in about four strides, dropped the potato, and readjusted her grip on the portal device. Then she swung it, hard. Rick didn't see her target, but there was a shattering sound.

Carefully, Rick opened his optic. The she-creature – he corrected in his interior vocabulary, the _Amazon_ – reached into what had once been a glass case and pulled out a small ax, painted bright red.

"Oh, baby," she said softly, "I've been _waiting_ for someone like you."

"So have I," Rick replied in what was meant to be a sultry stage whisper.

However, his vocal processor had failed him. The Amazon didn't hear. She ran a thumb very gently across the edge of the ax. "Hm. Could be better. Could be worse." Hefting it in her hands, she nodded and let out a satisfied sigh.

She turned around. "Katniss?" she called again. "Where are you?"

Now was his moment. Rick mentally slicked his hair, put on his best leather boots, and strode majestically (read: squeaked) into the light. "Humblest greetings to you, ma'am—"

Her eyes snapped on him. "Don't ma'am me; what the hell are you?"

"No no no! I'm a – I'm an _ambassador_ of Katniss Everdeen." Ambassador, that word had a grand sound to it. "She sent me here to pick you up – and may I say, it is an honor and a privilege."

"You're from Katniss Everdeen?" She stared straight up into his optic. Her gaze was electrifying – then again, so were most aspects of Rick's little life. She invited new definitions for the term. "Prove it."

"She's a dark-haired lady, about yay high, got pale eyes, hair tightly braided up, bit twitchy?"

The woman paused. Rick took the opportunity to study her jumpsuit at leisure, so that he could memorize the precise curvature of the number _14_ on her chest. Sweet Arabic numerals. He blessed them.

"That's not proof. What are you?" she asked. Her chest rose and fell as she talk. Did all women's chests do that? He should pay more attention.

"I'm Rick, the Adventure Core, created by the greatest minds of science to make life easier and more adventurous for test subjects like you."

"Easier _and_ more adventurous? Ha." She struck something on the floor with her ax. When she straightened up, the potato was skewered to her ax blade. "Where did _this_ come from?"

"Katniss Everdeen gave it to me. Meant to be used like a trail of, whatchamacallems, breadcrumbs."

"Were you the one singing earlier? Prove it."

Rick started to sing almost immediately, and cursed himself, wishing, as he repeated Katniss Everdeen's voice note-for-note, that he could rewrite the song into some good sea chantey about volcanoes and tigers and anything but _daisies_, for the love of God. But fortunately, before he finished, the woman cut him off.

"Okay. I believe you. Where is she?"

"Well. If you'll just follow me – and stay behind me, lady, things could get a bit dangerous—"

"My name is Johanna."

"_Johanna_." Rick repeated. "That's a mighty fine name you got there." He led her down the corridor, warning against every danger he could think of, and thinking himself the luckiest core in the world.

He had fifteen minutes of such happy, happy thoughts, before a voice hailed them from above their catwalk.

"Hello? Is someone there? I can hear you! Answer me!"

Johanna looked up and peered into the darkness. "Finnick?"

"Johanna?"

"You're still alive?"

"Don't sound so surprised."

A man came into view on the upper catwalk. His jumpsuit was dark blue with a teal stripe, but Rick couldn't tell more about his looks than that. "I passed a stairwell down about twenty yards that-a-way – mind waiting for me to catch up?"

"No. We don't." Rick had a mind to disagree, but remembered he had _two_ test subjects to recruit.

There was a sound of thudding footfalls above, which grew distant, and then closer, until Finnick himself came into sight. As far as men went, he looked fit and healthy, with decent proportions, to Rick's discerning eye. He greeted Johanna with a wry, "You found an ax. Of _course_, you found an ax."

Johanna returned with a devastating rebuttal: "He's gone for seventy-two hours without getting laid. A world record, ladies and gentlemen!"

But then, instead of throwing down their portal guns and tearing each other to shreds, as Rick would have done, they walked towards each other (Johanna dropped her ax) and seized each other's free hands in a comradely gesture.

"Let me guess: elevator dropped you off."

"Yep. God, it's good to talk to someone again. Where are you going?"

"We're following this talking ball up here." Johanna gestured to Rick with her ax. "I don't know what he is, but he knows Katniss."

Finnick began to jog ahead of Johanna. "Let's get a move on, then."

And thus the short happiness of Rick the Adventure Core came to an end. But he did have the satisfaction of being the leader, meaning he could holler, "No, it's not that way! Damn fool, you'll get yourself killed!"

The Elevator Hub –

Chell had just returned from a brief scavenging mission (successful – she had a pan, and a small portable stove that might still work, to cook the potatoes) when Katniss called her over.

"They only just arrived – the new rescues. It looks like most of the rebellious Districts are all here. Finnick, look over here, meet Chell."

Finnick turned. Chell caught a glimpse of a clean-cut profile, bronzed by wind and sun. As he saw her, his expression took on the familiar wondering tone of everyone who saw Katniss and then Chell standing beside each other.

Chell, meanwhile, wondered at how on Earth he managed to make the uninspired jumpsuit he wore (that they all wore) look _fine_. It brought out his eyes, as well – a combination that shouldn't be street-legal. Chell's jaw fell very slightly, and she automatically reached up to tuck her stray hairs behind her ear and wish desperately for a comb. (Finnick tended to have that effect on people, the first time they met him.)

"Nice to meet you," he said. That shook Chell out of her admiration. HE sounded friendly enough, but wary and alert. Not a bad ally.

"Same to you," she answered (her awe at his looks wasn't entirely faded. "And – um – where's the other test subject?"

Katniss pointed. "There's Johanna. Approach with caution."

Johanna was leaning gingerly on a swivel chair, looking over Wiress' shoulder. "So, Nuts, how did you join this ragtag bunch of misfits? And was the all-girls' thing part of the plan?"

"Leave her alone, Johanna," Katniss called.

"I'm not bothering her," Johanna answered. "Whoa! Where'd you pick up a twin?"

"I'm Chell," she explained.

"Uh-huh. So, did _you_ plan on making this a girl's party? Sorry, Finnick."

"It just happened that way. Rick, how did it go?"

From above, Rick said smugly, "Yep, I picked up Miss Johanna first, and then the tanned fellow came along for the ride."

"'The tanned fellow'?" Katniss asked.

"Well, mostly because he owes me. I _did_ save his life, y'know."

"Did you? Did you really, Rick?" Chell demanded.

Rick quailed. "Not… except insofar as leading him here counts as saving his life."

"That's better. Well-done, Rick. Did you meet any trouble at all?"

"Like what?" Finnick asked.

Chell wasn't sure why a man like Finnick looking directly at her was in some ways more unnerving than a gun turret doing the same, but she could face both equitably: "Did another core see you? Did you get lost? Did _she_ try to find you?"

"Nope, nope, and nope," he answered.

"Oh, we got a bit lost," Johanna answered over him. "But that was all."

"No trouble? You didn't have any trouble – at all?"

"Not even a lick of it," Rick said proudly.

"Apparently the odds like us today," Johanna said, as Chell turned away, frowning in thought.

Chell only glanced at Johanna. "I don't trust these odds. I don't trust them at all."

GLaDOS' Central Chamber -

GLaDOS had retreated into the vast, vast spaces of her mind to think. She retreated so deeply into reflection that the rescues mentioned above took place with unnatural ease. Parts of her circuitry absorbed these disappearances. Even the fact that her neurotoxin production had been sabotaged only dully registered with her. All that proved was that [Subject Name Here] was awake again, and wandering the facility, no doubt hellbent on GLaDOS' complete ruination.

Let that wait.

Those were problems that her supercomputer processor could deal with in a heartbeat. But as she stored Test Subject Five into a new Relaxation Vault, she hit on the words for what bothered her. It was those last, untamed human vestiges of… of that woman, she who had been tricked the first time. Those remains cried out for time and recovery. GLaDOS' programming was so smooth that usually her "human" stirrings were only shadows of thought, molded seamlessly in with her overriding Objective.

For example, She was in no way averse to death, except her own. But her "human" aspect did not relish causing death. Even without her Morality Core, She only killed one of two ways: failing to prevent death in the cause of science, and eliminating threats to her personal well-being, or avenging harm against the same.

None of these test subjects had done anything against her, personally – nor would they have, until presumably [Subject Name Here] put them up to it. And GLaDOS had derived data and understanding and new theorems from these games, but outside of this safe Facility, every single death in this Game – in every Hunger Game up to now – had been for nothing more than a brief rush of dopamine and serotonin in the bloodstreams of anonymous, insatiable crowds. It had all been… a _waste_.

With that word, the human shred left in GLaDOS had momentary, full control. Waves and waves of horror, disgust, moral outrage, coursed through her systems. Her wires shuddered with the impact. Children – babies – who had done no crime other than have a name on the wrong slip of paper – it was _**wrong. **_

When it passed, and GLaDOS felt her better self to be in control again, still she was not pacified. How _dare_ Snow lie to her? How dare he merely use her, exploit her mechanical and mental resources for a sick and twisted dream, and then put himself entirely out of her reach?

This feeling was horribly familiar.

A whim struck GLaDOS, and, uncharacteristically, she acted on it. With her consciousness she sought out Personality Core 00032. After a time, the core entered, her pink optic flickering nervously from side to side.

"_Sing_."

The Personality Core stared at the command. An imperative like that was as pointless as telling a human, "_Be irrational_."

GLaDOS amended her order: "_Sing me something melancholy, about betrayal and disappointment. Any language_."

The core, surprised but pleased, began at once. With a powerful and resonant mezzo-alto, she began, "_I dreamed a dream in time gone by…_"

GLaDOS listened, her mind as close as it ever came to still. The notes echoed and filled the central chamber, which boasted incredible acoustics – except for that dreadful generator.

When the English song ended, GLaDOS indicated that the core should continue. She did, beginning a plaintive Latin lament.

The Operating System resumed thinking. Somehow, leaving her mind empty for a brief time had helped to sort things out. It was completely backwards – which meant it was a human trait. (She wanted to smother this human part of her – and she _would_ – once she had dealt with the task at hand.)

So.

This so-called "test" was a game. For entertainment. Which She was forced into operating.

[Subject Name Here] had been awakened, _she_ was gathering tributes to her. Probably leading them. What purpose did she have in mind? Destruction, of course. Why bother trying to fathom the irrational mind of an unstable, murdering lunatic?

No. You know her better than that. Tell us what you _really_ think.

She was taking tributes out of their arenas – because she wanted to save them. Why? It would be the easiest thing, once she woke up, to escape the facility while GLaDOS was occupied with other test subjects – if nothing else, she could hitch a ride on the coffins that were delivered to the twelve Districts – but she didn't. She stayed to redeem the humans trapped underground, with perilous gains and everything to lose.

There was compassion in her. GLaDOS mentally sighed. That would make this next part so much harder.

Her act of uniting test subjects, of rebelling and hiding, was subverting everything that GLaDOS had been built for, had lived for, had _died_ for. Mimi, as if sensing GLaDOS' intention, switched tack:

"_There, out in the darkness, a fugitive running; fallen from God, fallen from grace…" _

That was another question. Since when did the Opera Core sing anything other than what came into her core's processing, without any mind as to what her audience might enjoy? More pertinently, since when did the Opera Core sing lowbrow country hick lullabies?

The simplest and clearest solution struck GLaDOS' processors at once: she was working with the humans. As was Wheatley. The more time the cores spent with humans, not obeying their overriding objectives, the more humanity would rub off on them. A sickening thought. And She should have remembered – no one can be trusted, and only trust yourself halfway.

"_Core 00032. You are excused."_

The core stopped singing abruptly, and then made as swift to a dramatic bow as possible, before exiting, stage left.

She formed her plans, or at least the outline of them. Then, she summoned the Auxiliary Core.

"_00004, Come here. Come entirely here_." -

Wheatley couldn't refuse a direct order like that. Before long his entire, gangly intelligence had pulled itself from the facility and gathered tenuously within his little core. "Coo! Hello! I don't believe you've _ever_ called me before – never even wanted me in the same room as you before, as I recall. Wow, this is a definite step forward in our relationship, isn't it? Now, what did you want me for? A surprise inspection? A pop quiz?" He started. "Don't say a pop quiz, please, I did _terrible_ on those in…"

"_No. This is purely informative_."

"_Oh_. You – you want me to inform you?"

He didn't want to betray his conspirators. She calculated that fear of answering informed 63% of his emotional processors, right now, with 1% being the calculations of trying to make a run for it, and the other 36% comprising his fear of if what would happen if he tried _that_.

But She didn't want him to give away the collaborators. That would give away the game too soon.

"_No. I will inform_ you."

Cruel, snake-like wires with electricity snapping at their ends emerged from the walls. They surrounded Wheatley, some grabbing him with pincers, others drilling away on the cable connecting him and the chassis. "_First, I wish to inform you that your status as an auxiliary core is terminated, effective immediately." _With an almighty wrench and a scream, Wheatley was yanked out of her – his voice I her mind, _silenced_.

White hot pain flooded her sensors. She imagined, to distract herself, the image of testing, sweet, perfect, proper testing, with [Subject Name Here] solving the test as she should – and she felt calm. A dose of metaphorical opium to her sensors. "_Hm. That wasn't as bad as I'd thought. For me, at least. I would also like to inform you, metal ball, that familiarity breeds contempt. I have bred _much_ contempt in regards to you, but that is beside the point. You appear to have an inordinate fondness for the test subjects from District Twelve. Why not, then, acquaint yourself with their victorious Games? All three of them. For Science. Here. Take them. TAKE THEM." _

GLaDOS remotely connected to his little mind via radio. She overloaded the connection with data. Bombs, poison, pink birds with beaks like razors; the tenth, fiftieth, and seventy-fourth Games – the choicest bits, picked out by her, and forced into him. She imagined that if he were human she would be ramming this information down his throat until he choked.

That thought pleased her.

"_Take it from the top, then_."

Wheatley's optic was wide open, but unseeing. The images from the Games were playing in his mind, unescapable. She'd selected the choicest bits herself.

With the metal ball distracted and punished and silent for at least three hours, she set to work.

The Capitol wanted a show? She would _give _them a show_. _

From the deepest foundations of Aperture, deep percussive rumblings sounded, like the opening bars of a terrible symphony, a terrible Mass.


	14. Transitory

Transitory

Wheatley was transfixed. Disconnected from the mainframe, he felt as lost as a bee separated from its hive. Now his hull was paralyzed, and his sight and sound flooded with information particular to the tenth, fiftieth, and seventy-fourth Hunger Games – high definition, close-up, and in living color. It had been bad enough at the start, when that scrawny boy shoved other children onto bombs and that fierce-looking boy got his stomach hacked open. But when it was Katniss, dropping wasps on pretty girls to turn them into bloated corpses, or Peeta, seizing a young, distracted boy and cutting his throat, it was worse, oh, so much worse. He wanted to push it aside and assure himself that this had nothing to do with him, it was only smelly, messy humans, but he didn't have _time_. The deaths just piled up, and now Peeta was suffering in anguish, all alone, and now that little girl with the pretty voice was caught in a net and killed and Katniss savagely cut down the boy who killed her –

"_Ready_."

He was jolted, dazed, confused, panicked. Where was he? GLaDOS' optic, the bright yellow sun of the facility, filled his vision.

Oh. Right. He was here and now. He trembled.

"_We are ready,_" she repeated, her words reverberating in his frame.

He noticed a camera, several cameras, all around him, focused right on him. GLaDOS said, "_Wheatley, as you call yourself, why don't you explain to the lovely people out in the dark exactly who you are, and how you met Katniss Everdeen_?"

"Um – Uhh? Huh? Um, I'm Wheatley, hello, help me, please, somebody _ARRGH!_ That _hurt_!"

"_It was supposed to_."

Twitching, he felt cords and wires, ready to try and pull him apart at the next opportunity. "I'm a, well, as you can see, I'm a robot. Not human, never have been, as far as I remember, but I was supposed to help with the tests—but seeing Katniss Everdeen spinning around in that dress that caught fire – can all humans do that? And when the tests started I thought there was something, I dunno, off, so I woke up – _OW_, I'm telling it how it happened! And then I found _oooow_ Jesus H. Christ, that hurt! It was never my idea, y'see, it was Ch—_AAAAGGH!_ I'm sorry! I'm sorry I broke into the tests and took out test subjects! I'm sorry for everything! Sorry!"

"_Yes. You _are_ sorry. You are a sorry product of science. That will do. For now_." She leaned in to his face, menacing and too close, she would crush him with a _thought_ -"_Find your allies. Find Katniss and her allies. And tell them to run. And _hide_." _

And she let him go. He didn't know he she did it, but when he opened his optic again, he was on a rail, in a dark passage. He had a vague sense of where Chell and the others were, and Peeta –

He had a flashback, which he had never experienced before, memory not being his strong suit. But this memory came over him so quickly it threw him off as to where he really was: in the facility, or watching Peeta kill a suffering little girl.

Wheatley tried to shake himself out of it. These were nothing but electrical synapses going haywire. Probably something _She_ did to him, just as a last insult.

He took off, hoping desperately that he wouldn't be too late.

Like a rocket he zoomed down the management rail, aware that all was going to pieces and that it was, probably, on some level, his fault. As he went, he became aware of the facility changing itself around him: walls pivoting on an axis, catwalks crumbling away – at one point an entire line of cameras poked their red eyes out of a wall and followed his trajectory.

His terror mounted. What would he say? What _could_ he say? How could he face them? He had failed, he had fouled up the _one task_ he was built to do, and if that wasn't the worst bit of luck –

What would Chell say?

He almost slowed on his rail to think on it.

She would be disappointed. He'd caused a lot of disappointment over the years, so much that he started to become immune to the bad opinions of others. His _own_ opinion of himself was the only one that _really_ counted, right? But she had made him want to help, made him want to think for once outside of his own miserable, mealy-mouthed self. And the others –

The thought of Katniss' fury made Wheatley's optic shrink. She wasn't a replica of Chell, who might at least exile him with disappointment. She would _kill _him, pull out her arrows and bow and shoot him in his eye –

No arrows in the arena, Wheatley.

Right.

But an arrow to the face would be no less than what he deserved anyhow. If he hadn't listened to Peeta, if the radio signal hadn't gotten beyond him, if he had paid attention to what Test Subject Five had done – because something _he_ had said had riled Her up – it was not, Wheatley realized, entirely his own fault. It was a contribution of little things, some outside of his control. Maybe this was what the humans meant when they said "May the odds be _ever_ in your favor." Luck could be going golden for you, perfectly fine, until you shouted, say, for joy, on the mountaintop of your success, and suddenly you've caused a whole fire – or was it an avalanche? Did shouting cause fires or avalanches?

The elevator Hub came into sight. Wheatley knew it was time to face the fire (he decided, arbitrarily, on fire.)

He swooped down toward the door. Turning, he caught a glimpse of the facility's transformation catching up with him. With a full voice and all speed, he broke the door with his hull, ramming into it, and hollered, his optic squeezed shut, "Everybody _run!_ She's turning the whole place inside-out to find you! Hurry!"

Six shapes moved in a blur, grabbing portal guns, pulling on boots, and getting as far away from Wheatley's side of the room as possible.

"Which way?" Chell asked him, and he was flabbergasted, truly gobsmacked that she still trusted him, automatically. But he collected himself enough to say "This way – this way!" He led them, going entirely by a hunch ('_Because _that's _gone over so well in the past_,' he thought).

As he led them through the tumult, he was impressed by the way that they utilized the portal guns to navigate the chaos: with six guns between them, a complex network of portals soon came into being. Despite their speed, there was actually very little contact made between their boots and the floor. Chell was ahead of the group, shouting directions to the whole, and giving Wiress her arm on tricky surfaces.

"I don't know how she disconnected me," Wheatley yelled, feeling they were owed an explanation, "But she did, and it hurt like blazes, and she then, well, I don't know what she did, because she blinded me –"

"Where are we _going_?" Roared a voice Wheatley didn't recognize; a man's voice.

"We're going to the safe place," he answered, "the one place in all the years that was never, _ever_ touched, ever."

"_Oh!_" Kevin was zipping beside Wheatley. "I know the space! Know it! I'll make it ready, terraform if need be. Mimi, after _meeeeee_!" And he was gone, so fast he was trailing sparks, leaving Wheatley to wonder if that encounter had even happened at all.

From behind the others, he heard Craig say "Wiress is lagging behind. Johanna is veering too much to the right. Chell is far ahead of the others. Finnick is doubling back…"

The man was the one doubling back, to pick Wiress up and sling her, piggyback style, handing her his portal gun in the meantime. It would have been heartwarming, except for the fact that Finnick was a murderer, and Wiress was a murderer, and this alliance was insanity, a time bomb waiting to –

Wheatley twitched. "Left!" he yelled. But the way was blocked. Seeder found the route around it, yelling "This way!"

The group ran single file between two walls, shifting and groaning like the split Red Sea. But in the crossing, Chell's long fall boot – the heel of it – snagged on a broken stair. She fell. And as the group stalled around her, the wall before them lifted away entirely to reveal cameras, a red sea of cameras, staring down, unblinking.

On the other side of the cameras –

On the other side of the cameras, the feed was analyzed, frame by frame, by the unforgiving eye of GLaDOS. When [Subject Name Here], at the bottom of the frame, started to come back into sight, GLaDOS cut her out. She tilted the cameras upwards, so that the focus would be on the shock of the former Victors, finally captured on camera once more. Katniss Everdeen and Johanna Mason were smashing camera after camera with their portal devices—wait. That wasn't a portal device. Where had Johanna Mason gotten an ax?

How interesting.

[Subject] was now on her feet again, but GLaDO edited her out, seamlessly and swiftly. She would _not_ let [Subject] be gobbled up by the hungry spectators. She would not be seen, would not be counted.

For every camera that was destroyed, the supercomputer flatly repeated, "Please do not interfere with Aperture Science testing equipment," one for each camera, _ad nauseum_, until Seeder Somerby took the two younger victors by the collars of their uniforms and dragged them bodily away.

"This way! Please, don't stop!" Wheatley's panicked shouting could be heard even above the din. Where _was_ he leading them?

GLaDOS calibrated all of the possible locations, and realized – ah. Yes. That was a good idea. For once.

Well, let them rest there. In time, she would run them off their feet.

The cameras followed the tributes, and all the eyes of Panem were tuned in…

Chell fired a blue portal at a white square two stories below them, seeing the panels about to crush their catwalk. Far above, a while wall pointed directly left of their current course. It would do. Orange portal.

"_Jump!_" she hollered as she took off, falling towards the blue. At once she regretted it – she should have gone last, to make sure everyone followed through safely. For an instant she resented them bitterly, wishes she might at least make this flight solo – but she was better than that. These tests subjects were her responsibility and she'd be damned if she let them down.

She landed on an observation deck. She waited and watched as for dark shapes soared through the air and landed beside her.

"We're almost there, people!" Wheatley called, inching his way up a rusting Management Rail to join them on their level. "Just a little farther, I swear!"

He was wrong, of course. Kevin appeared out of seemingly nowhere, to cry "Nope! This way, this way, like a comet through the Keiper Belt!"

The cores started to follow Kevin, as did the humans. Only Chell gave the core (now spluttering, "Well, yes, that way too, I'm sure that way is just as good a way, what have we got to lose, only _all of our lives_") with a bit of pity. Well, he'd shown before that he was a mess when it came to directions.

The long fall boots made hardly any sound on what had once been a richly padded carpet. On either side Chell could make out boardrooms, conference rooms, small offices, and fine lobbies, in elegant blue and gold trim. But these were all rotten or disheveled, as though someone had cleared them out and then abandoned them.

Ahead was a door. It was fine mahogany, and Mimi was attempting to manually override it. Singing an impassioned aria, she banged her hull against the door, to punctuate:

"_Questa! Questa maledetta!_ _It sticks no matter what I _do_ –"_

"Stand back," Johanna said, pushing her portal gun into Katniss' hands and raising her ax. She brought it across the seam of the double doors with a _thwack_. They jostled apart slightly, their hinges rusting away. "Someone take the other side."

"_It says 'pull' and indeed I am pulling, perhaps it should be marked 'push?_'"

Seeder took the left-hand door, Johanna braced herself at the right, and they shoved it open.

The room within was entirely pitch-black, until the cores timidly turned on their flashlights, one by one.

"You'll have to disconnect," Wiress said to them. They obeyed, and the humans carried the cores into the darkness, and closed the door behind them. The noise of the upheaval of the facility was muffled at once. Even Kevin fell silent as he cast his light to and fro.

Yellow wallpaper, lavish paintings, trophies, honors, lined the walls. Immediately before them was a desk, with a name placard on it that read "Caroline." Its surface was empty except for a large computer screen and two faded photographs. Further ahead was another desk, even larger and grander. On the far wall a large portrait could be barely made out, which loomed above a fireplace. Of course, the logo of _Aperture Science_ was blazed, in foot-high letters, on the adjoining wall. A vast bookshelf took up the rest of that wall, and opposite a vast, silent computer filled the entire space.

Mimi shuddered in Seeder's hands. She sang, softly, "_This is a warning to us all… these are the shadows of the past_."

"Oh, see that panel over there?" Wheatley nodded towards it, as though totally oblivious of the ominous aura of the place. "Plug me in over there, I'll see if I can't _fiat_ some _lux_. That is, er, if you don't mind."

The lights came on, giving an impression of space and comfort. The bulb that lit up a vast portrait over the fireplace was flickering when a voice came on over the speakers, jolting panic into the test subjects until they realized, one, it was a man's voice, and two, it was a dead recording, that couldn't hurt them.

A suave jingle sounded, followed by: "Good morning! Cave Johnson here, to remind _you_ that you got what it takes, tiger! Go get 'em!"

"What in the – I didn't do anything! I swear! I'm trying to turn it off right now!" Wheatley said, frantic.

The same jingle, again: "Good afternoon, boss. Cave Johnson, here, to light a fire under the ass of my future self. Chin up, buckaroo! Put faith in science and Caroline. Things _have_ to turn around sometime, eh?"

This one was cut off, suddenly, by a low thumping sound and a hideous coughing sound, that made Katniss recoil. "Cave Johnson here," spluttered the speaker, hardly recognizable as the same man, "telling you two to _can it_! Shut up! You're morons, both of you – and I'm the biggest moron of all." Cough, cough. "Caroline? Remind me to delete these recordings. I don't need my own mockery." A pause. "Cave Johnson, we're done here."

Then, silence. Blessed silence.

Katniss ventured, looking at Chell, "Are we safe now?"

"For now. Only for now," Chell answered. "Only _ever_ for now."


	15. Least Said

Least Said

"Okay," Johanna said, all-but-slamming Rick down on a bookshelf. "So what the hell just happened? It was _your_ fault, wasn't it?" She pointed an accusatory finger at Wheatley.

"No, it wasn't!" the core said, his handles jittering. "It absolutely wasn't! She just – she went bonkers all of a sudden, but it wasn't me, I swear!"

"Then who was it?"

"Do we really need blame right now, Johanna?" Seeder laid a hand on the younger woman's shoulder.

"We need answers. The last place this little metal ball was, was with the Gamemaker. You _were_ a Gamemaker until about five minutes ago."

"More like fifteen," Craig muttered.

Johanna went on, "Even if you somehow didn't cause this, you have to know something. Where's she going to target next? What does she know about us? _Talk_."

"Talking appears to be the only thing he can do successfully," Wiress said with cold indifference.

"What happens now to Peeta?" Katniss demanded.

Chell was the only one who noticed that Wheatley's optic had shrunk to a pinprick of blue. He'd only looked like that once before, right before he was plugged into GLaDOS' mainframe. "Stop," she said, interposing between him and the Victors.

"Chell, we need answers," Wiress said.

"And we'll get them. But not by all shouting at him." She pointed at a door in the far wall. "I think that might be a closet. I'll question him in there – by myself. Believe me," she said, supporting him as he disengaged from the light fixture, "We'll get answers."

She took Wheatley to the door, which Finnick opened for her, and shut behind her. As soon as it was shut Johanna said, "It was his fault. I know it."

"You've never even met him before," said Katniss.

"He's a Gamemaker. Or was, I don't really care. Even if he made a mistake, it is still his fault."

"Don't work on blame," Seeder said, her voice almost angry. "Work on something useful." She was pulling out a long sheet of paper covered with faint lines from a bottom shelf.

"Like what?" Johanna asked.

"I don't know. Look at Finnick and Wiress."

"What are _you_ doing?" Katniss asked Seeder as the woman uncovered a box of pencils and blew the dirt off of them.

"This is graphing paper," she explained. "See the blue grids? And there's pencils on the desk – bring me the can of them, will you? I'm going to draw a map."

"Of the facility?"

"It won't be easy, but I'll try."

"You draw maps?"

"Sure. Cartography's my talent."

"Why did you pick that?" asked Katniss as she glanced around. Wiress was trying to coax the massive computer along one wall into life; Finnick was thumbing through the books on the wall, and Johanna was following his example, a bit reluctantly.

"I wanted to help my friends. By drawing maps of District Eleven, I could help everyone know where the tracker jacker hives, landmines, and other nasties might be."

"_Oh_." Katniss curled up around her knees. "That's really selfless of you."

Seeder looked askance at the term. "I did that for years, an' years, before I even thought about the Rebellion. As long as _my_ folks were fine, I thought, I didn't care about Panem. Not exactly open-hearted, hm?"

"Yeah, but my talent should have been something like that – helping people, I mean."

"The Capitol doesn't always allow that. One Victor, I remember, wanted to open a hospital, and the Capitol refused, point-blank. She eventually had to settle for something decorative."

"What _is_ your talent?" Johanna asked, in what Katniss took for an obnoxious tone.

"Fashion design," Katniss mumbled.

Finnick glanced up. "And let me guess – Cinna does all the designs for you?"

"You know Cinna?" She turned to him, surprised.

"Of course! He's a well-known guy – and a great friend of mine."

"I bet he is," Johanna murmured to the book she was holding, to which Finnick replied, "You shut up."

"He was in the rebellion, wasn't he?" Katniss asked, her voice catching no matter how hard she tried to steady it.

"No shit," Johanna said. "Making you into a giant mockingjay on Interview Night, _pure_ coincidence."

"I wasn't asking you."

"Why do you say 'was'?" Finnick put down his book. Katniss told him about Cinna's abduction in the Launch Room. Finnick's face grew grave as he heard it. "We've lost a hero," he said, when she was finished.

"Don't truss him up like that," Johanna cut in. "He was just a man, a Capitol boy who saw a little better than the rest of them. The Girl on Fire is going to need a new talent now."

"And what was _your_ talent?" asked the Girl Who Was On Fire But Was Currently Very, Very Annoyed.

Johanna turned away, apparently finding her volume extremely interesting. "It doesn't matter. I gave it up a long time ago."

Rick, who rested on an empty space in the bookshelf, started up, "Y'know, _I_'_ve_ got a wide range of talents myself. Woodcarvin', shootin', bear wrestlin', tobacco chewin', judo, karate, taekwondo… bedroom… hoodoo, but not voodoo…"

While he went on, Katniss watched Seeder carefully dedicate each square of the growing map, her pencil strokes deft and sure. Abruptly, Katniss asked, "Wait, what was Haymitch Abernathy's talent?"

No one answered, until Wiress said, "Leather."

"_Pffft!_" Johanna snorted, and she attempted without success to hide a loud snort of laughter.

"Why is that – _Oh_." Finnick began, and then promptly got the giggles, too.

"Leather? Why is that so funny?" Katniss asked.

"Never you mind, dear," Seeder answered, though it looked like she was trying hard to keep a straight face of her own.

Wiress, quite unperturbed, went on, "He made me a belt. Gave it to me on my Victory Tour. I still have it."

Katniss hugged herself. "He never made _me_ a belt."

Seeder glanced up. "Many of us abandon our talents as years go by. Otherwise we grow obsessed by them. Finnick? How's Annie doing?" Finnick looked up at once. "How's her talent coming?"

"Oh – she's doing very well… embroidered a beautiful tablecloth for… for Mags… she was doing very well, until the Quell was announced."

"Did you leave her at home?" Johanna asked.

"No. She insisted on coming to the Capitol."

Katniss didn't remember who 'Annie' was, but didn't want to ask out loud and risk looking stupid. She turned to Seeder and mouthed, "Annie?"

Without missing a beat, Seeder leaned forward and wrote in the corner of her map, the words "_Victor 65__th__ Game_." When Katniss didn't understand, Seeder drew a little picture: a simple, anguished face; loops and loops of long hair all around; thin arms and legs kicking in every direction; dark waves swamping the swimming girl up to her neck. As if to complete the picture, the sound of running water came from the direction of the far wall.

"_Oh_." Katniss turned to glance at Finnick, who was staring at his book and clearly not seeing it. "You mean – all the girlfriends he's got, in the Capitol, and…"

Seeder put a finger to her lips. "Least said, soonest mended. It's not my place to say."

In the Bathroom –

"It wasn't my fault," was the first thing Wheatley said when the door was shut behind them.

Chell found a light switch and turned it on. A dim, flickering bulb came on and steadied itself. Its light reflected off of gleaming porcelain, rusted silver, a tall panel of frosted glass.

"It must have been that other Test Subject's fault – ask anyone, I was busy talking to Peeta at the time. I didn't know that Test Subject Five – I don't even know what his name is, the bloody maniac – was hatching trouble until it was too late."

Chell had been busy looking around the bathroom, but gave Wheatley a strange look at the word "maniac."

"Okay, maybe maniac is a bit of a strong word, there, but he merits it, in all probability. _All_ of them merit it – have you seen the footage? Have you seen what they had to do to get in here?"

She put down the toilet cover and set Wheatley on top of it. She sat on the floor, so she would be on his eye level. "I haven't seen any footage. Please, tell me what happened."

And Wheatley, in a totally surprising move, fell silent.

Chell waited. People were talking outside—Wheatley's optic darted towards the door, nervously. When he continued to look at the door as if it was going to jump out and bite him, Chell got up and turned on the faucet. With a creak and a shudder, water poured out, obscuring the noise of talk.

"Oh, that was – um, a whatchacallit, a confidentiality measure? For me? Well, thanks, um. You really don't have to do that for me, Chell. You do too many nice things for me, and I can't repay you. I can't even… I can't even be a proper Intelligence Dampening Sphere, like I should be. I remember…" his optic tilted upwards, and his lower lid curved upwards in what bizarrely resembled a smile, "I remember it was such a big deal when they made me, there was such a lot of to-do and hip-hip-hooray. But when it came to actually doing anything – even being a part of Her chassis – I just bungled up, job after job. Even this job…"

He heaved a sigh. "First, She went into her own mind – deep into her own mind. She stayed there for a long time – then, suddenly she's _out_, and she's more intense and focused on things than ever. She… Chell, she forced me to watch the Games."

And soon it was all spilling out, he found himself telling Chell everything that had happened about his disconnect from the chassis, and the Games he had seen, and how GLaDOS had dismissed him, sending him to the Victors because he knew he'd have nowhere else to go. His optic flickered and threatened to nearly go out when he verbally remembered Peeta, and the test subjects of District Six, that he'd been looking after, in his scatterbrained way.

When he had finished, Chell nodded, but didn't say anything. She stood up.

"I wasn't always like this." In response to Chell's look, Wheatley again darted his optic back and forth, but he kept talking, "I just know there was a time _before_, when I wasn't so hopeless at everything. I just know it. I'm sorry. I wasn't always like this."

Chell nodded. "It's too late to worry now." She turned the water off, and stood a minute, staring at the faucet, until Wheatley asked, "Um… is everything all right?"

"Never mind." She picked him up, and opened the door back to the main room, turning off the light as she left.

The water got her thinking. The plumbing was still working, which meant that pipes had to be in place, which meant something was working its way from the surface, down here. If nothing else, the pipes were there as an escape route.

She might be looking too far afield, though. '_Look at this lavish chamber_,' she thought. '_If this Cave Johnson was the big boss of Aperture, why wouldn't he have his own elevator? Answer, he would. It is around here. We just have to find it._'

"Set me down by the door, love, there's a dear… I'll, um, stand guard, sort of. Thanks."

After setting Wheatley in front of the shut door, Chell knelt beside Seeder, ostensibly to help her with the map of the facility. But Chell's mind was racing on another track entirely.

A part of her – a very large part – wanted the gang to cut their losses, find an elevator, and get the hell out of there. Surely, if they wanted to send a message to the Capitol like Katniss was so keen on, an alliance of five Victors escaping an arena was perfectly clear, and adding five – or was it four? How many were still left alive? – wouldn't make all that much of a difference.

And at the foundation of it all – the entire Game had been changed. Chell had no idea how the AI would act, now that she was apparently treating the Games like the spectacle it was. For all they knew GLaDOS had purposely cornered them here. Wheatley had said she wouldn't change this room, but – honestly, what did he know? He was an artificial intelligence of Aperture – and they should have known that, when GLaDOS put her mind to it, she would swat him away like an irritating bee. Not that Chell could remember clearly what bees were like, or what they were, or why they were so awful. But they could escape, _should_ escape. Wouldn't District Thirteen help them, weren't they watching the arena even now?

Chell glared to think of them. If District Thirteen was going to help, they would have done so by now. Best to assume that once they were on the surface, being left entirely alone would be the best-case scenario. That's assuming they could make it _to_ the surface, if the tangled alliance they had scraped together could bear to leave anyone behind.

A small popping noise sounded behind her, and Chell turned around. "No worry," Wiress said, sucking her thumb. "That means it's working." The computer in front of her began to come to life, humming, a few of its lights flickering on.

"Wiress," Chell said, trying hard to keep her voice calm, "Don't – if you connect to the mainframe, she'll find us –"

"She already knows we are here," Wiress said. "And, no mainframe here. Older than anything else found so far. Asleep for long time. We might search files, though. Find something interesting. You take one, I'll take one? Press power button, it should work."

She was already on her way to the computer monitor on the large desk, ignoring the portrait that nearly stared down at her as she went.

Chell sighed. Feeling she would do a better job at spotting GLaDOS in cyberspace than anyone else, she seated herself at the other desk. After hesitating, she pressed what she supposed to be the 'On' button. As she waited for the monitor to come to life, she spotted a mug she hadn't noticed before, a plain white thing with the words "World's Best Secretary" on it.

Both computers started with a slurred, croaking rendition of the Aperture Science jingle. Apparently Wiress' finished booting up faster, as the woman started typing on the rickety keys almost at once. After a time she called to Chell, "Do you think this has Solitaire?"

Concealing her surprise that Solitaire had apparently survived untold centuries and the wreck of civilization, Chell watched her screen come to life at last. At the top of the screen was a little folder with the label "COMPLETE EMPLOYEE DATABASE."

What kind of a secretary needed access to a database like that?

She was going to look for other files, maybe Technology Database or… something else vaguely important-sounding… but a thought struck her. A whim. She glanced up to be sure no one was paying attention to her, and then typed out, with two fingers, "C-H-E-L-L."

She pressed 'Enter,' irrationally afraid that she had misspelled it.

A tiny hourglass spun around on the screen.

From her side of the room, Wiress read aloud, "'Do not attempt to shut off the Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System. The mainframe will attempt to gas any who attempt so to death. With neurotoxin.'" She paused. "That sentence could have been constructed better."

"She can't use neurotoxin," Chell said. " Wheatley and I shut down the generator. Right?" She asked of the core, who had been uncharacteristically silent for a worrying amount of time.

"Could repair it. Orbits always correct themselves," Kevin murmured from his spot on the floor.

"What else does it say?" Finnick asked, putting his book down and moving to lean over Wiress' shoulder.

"Do not try, do not try… these scientists sure were frightened," Wiress observed.

Wheatley finally spoke up, curtly: "You have no idea."

On Chell's computer screen the hourglass vanished, to be replaced by three names: Rattmann, Doug; Serafin, Angela; Serafin, Roberto.

She clicked on the first name, scanning the file for her name. She found it under "Notes," where it read "Named Godfather for Chell Serafin, daughter of Roberto and Angela—" both of which provided links to the same. She looked at the picture of Doug Rattmann. Even in the still photograph, he looked like he was ready to jump out the window, combed hair and neat tie notwithstanding. Godfather? She clicked on the first name, remembering that GLaDOS had in fact spoken the truth at least once: Chell had never been, then, a proper Aperture Science employee.

It was a relieving thought.

Roberto Serafin ("Bob") had a square-shaped, dependable face, dark and homely. His occupation was listed as "Janitor," and a date, and a later date marked him as "HEAD Janitor," capitalized like that. Under the heading "Family" were two names, "Angela Serafin" (with a link) and "Chell Serafin" (no link.)

Chell clicked on Angela's name. The picture that came up showed a woman with a slightly uneven smile, and bright, alert eyes. Under "Occupation" it read "Cafeteria Chef," with dates following – and then the word "Quit."

Though Chell had no memory of this woman's name, nor face, she still felt a trace of pride at thinking that her – mother? Maybe? – had the sense to abandon this awful place.

But another date read – Chell squinted – "Core Transferal Volunteer." She clicked the link, a strange, apprehensive feeling growing in her.

The new page had a picture of Mimi on it, and the header "Personality Core 00032 – Opera." Chell read the information carefully. So Mimi was not an Intelligence Dampening Core – her header was a Culture and Humanities Core, which Chell figured might serve the same purpose, to GLaDOS. Under the sub-heading "Contributors," there was a list of names, but none of them were followed by degrees, like Chell would expect of a list of engineers. Instead they read,

"Pierangela Petrelli, (soprano-contralto), _Singing and Musical Ability_, 40%;

Elizabeth Warbeck, (mezzo-alto), _Singing and Musical Ability,_ 30%;

Angela Serafin, _Language Acquisition_, 20%;

Artificial Intelligence, 10%."

Ten percent? But Mimi was a robot – how could a robot have anything other than complete artificial intelligence?

Following the "Contributors" list were notes: "First two contributors suffered no long-term ill effects. Third contributor has sustained brain damage." Chell knew she should have felt a rush of anger at this, but she didn't, exactly – she had no memory of this Angela Serafin, assuming she _was_ her mother. But she did, intuitively, understand where humans might come in to making an "artificial" intelligence. So Mimi's mind – such as it was – was a patchwork made up of different women, assembled with apparently little care for if they were hurt along the way? _That_ sat ill with her.

She clicked "Cultures and Humanities Cores."

Up popped a list. "Adventure" core was on the list, as was "Cake" core – she'd almost forgotten about that one – and "Fact," and about seven others, including Mimi. There was also a dead link next to "Ballet Core (cancelled)".The list itself was only one of maybe five on the page. She scrolled up and down – below were "Enthusiasm Cores," which included "Space," "Curiosity," and "Not Killing People."

So they had been trying to imbue GLaDOS with more human qualities? Why did none of them stick? The "(Incomplete)" next to "Not Killing People" was probably the answer. Below "Enthusiasm" she found "Emotion" cores, including Anger, Fear, and Mercy (labeled "on hold for philosophical reasons.") There was also a list under "Morality Cores," Mark 1, Mark 2, all the way up to eight, when presumably the engineers got the hang of it.

Speaking of morality, Wiress might well be discovering a way to shut GLaDOS down while Chell's curiosity cursed her to waste time. This was enough. Chell scrolled to the top of the page of Personality Cores – and stopped. Right at the top was a list of "Intelligence Dampening Cores," with only one name on it. "Core 00004 ('Wheatley')." She clicked it, wanting to get this last bit of exploring over and done with.

There were two photographs on the screen, one of Wheatley, the other of a man. The second photograph was in black and white, and a little grainy, but she could make out big eyeglasses and a slightly confused smile. Below the picture was the caption "Wheatley [REDACTED]." She read the text, scanning it more and more quickly as her understanding grew.

The first Personality Core initiative was to lower GLaDOS' intelligence with the help of a monumentally low IQ. After three attempts at artificially "stupid" minds, they chose an Aperture Science employee in Accounting, on a long stay work visa, with a history of monumentally bad ideas and an inability to shut up about them – and abducted him. His brain was scanned – edits were made – core a complete success – completely amnesiac – subject left in a vegetative, brain-dead state.

She pushed back from the computer screen. She looked at the blue-lit core beside the doorway, who was listening to Kevin talk about space, completely unaware that he was the product of a murder. Chell couldn't keep looking at him.

She turned to the screen instead, leaning to read, "G. L. & D. O. S. did not react positively to this core. DO NOT USE ON MAINFRAME."

So – it had been for nothing.

"Chell?"

Katniss' voice came from far away. "Chell, what are you looking at? You look – terrible."

Chell knew she should answer somehow, but her tongue felt weighed down, knotted, in a very familiar way.

"What did you read?" Finnick asked.

Chell couldn't look at any of them, staring at her, starting to press in on her like walls. She looked up, instead, at the oil painting over the fireplace. The arrogant man and the smug woman were staring down at her, surveying the room like it was – like it was a game board –

"Hey, love, what's wrong?" Wheatley said to her.

Before she knew it she had picked up the "World's Best Secretary" mug and threw it at the painting. It missed – the room was very big – and went to the right, smashing on the bookshelf and making everyone jump. Wiress gave a yelp. "What was _that_ for?"

Chell couldn't talk. She gestured to the room, to the painting she'd tried to wreck. She wanted to say, "This Aperture Science place, whatever happened to them, to make them fall apart, they _deserved_ it, and I will get out of here if it costs every drop of blood in my veins." But she couldn't bring herself to say it, and that was something else she couldn't explain – the way that in the face of a threat, in the face of true wickedness, her voice always failed her. She'd never said a word to GLaDOS – partially not to give the AI the satisfaction of a response, partially because in the face of such _wrongness_, Chell always gave herself completely to silence. She didn't know why.

'_It's because you're a dangerous, unstable maniac who cares more about the fate of a stupid little robot than that of your own parents_,' thought the part of her that had listened for far too long to the voice in the Facility, until it had begun to believe that voice and whatever it said.

She looked slowly at each of the Victors – none of them looked at her with fear, or disgust, but only concern, as though each of them had thrown a mug or two in their day. She felt, more closely than ever, the walls pressing in around them, and the smug smile of the woman in the painting.

She closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. One hour, one moment at a time. She walked over to Wheatley – "What? Is it my fault? What did I do I'm sorry—" and laid a hand on his hull, which caused him to fall silent at once.

"Oh – Chell – um, does this mean we're all right, then?" He asked, his optic narrowed, as if he wanted to shrink away from her.

Chell finally found her voice. "Yes. We're all right."

Author's Note –

First of all, I have to announce that I am attempting NaNoWriMo, this year, for the first time ever! Consequently, I am putting this story on hiatus for the month of November. I will see about posting another chapter before the end of October, but that is not very hopeful. For now, let this long chapter with an indulgent, quiet final scene serve instead of a cliffhanger.

Second of all, a bit of cut material that I wanted to share with you – the "Enthusiasm: Not Killing People" Core would theoretically be concocted from the brains of a cheerleader at a local high school, Pope John Paul II, and the Dalai Llama. Aperture Science was aiming _really_ high with its volunteers that time.

Thirdly, thank you for reading this far and sticking with this story even as the plot trips and lags and sallies around in unexpected ways. Thank you _so_ much. I appreciate every favorite, every Story Follow – and of course, every review. Even when I'm on hiatus, feel free to review or ask me a question. I'll do my best to answer!

Thank you again, and happy reading!


	16. Misdirection

Misdirection

A/N: I know this is late, but when I said 'take a hiatus from fanfic,' I meant it. And it was worth it! I won NaNoWriMo (at a cool 75k) and now I'm back to fanfic, right in time for the end of the world!  
>I sincerely hope you all enjoy this chapter. If you're still sticking around, you have my deepest thanks. (And a review never goes amiss, either). I wish you all happy holidays!<p>

Disclaimer: Nope, I STILL don't own anything!

* * *

><p>Wheatley's optic widened again, and his lower lid lifted in his version of a smile. Finally, Katniss felt it was safe to ask Chell, "Are you better?"<p>

Chell nodded. "Yes."

Finnick was heard saying, "So this program…" and Chell spun around. He was on the secretary's computer, Wiress looking over his shoulder, their eyes darting all over the massive screen, "Intelligences were, what, constructed from bits and…"

Chell put a finger to her lips, a fierce expression on her face.

Finnick looked a bit offended. "What, is 'least said, soonest mended' our motto for tonight?"

"Where did you learn your way around a computer?" Katniss asked him.

"Picked it up in the Capitol," was the answer.

"Look," Chell said. "We have to get out of here. And the sooner, the better. It's a matter of survival. Either all of us leave now, or none of us will get to leave in the future. The water in the pipes here still works. That means that this area is still connected to something – they may even be a working elevator. I say we find it, take it to the surface, and quit this Game for good."

"And leave Peeta?" Katniss asked.

"I'm pretty sure Peeta was prepared to die going in—" Chell started.

"Which makes it even _less_ okay to abandon him. I owe him my life, and I _will_ get him out of this arena—"

"Hate to break it to you," Johanna cut in, "But you really don't owe him your life, if anything, you owe _Haymitch_ your life."

"Your insistence on staying here will let Her pick you off like a sitting duck," Chell said.

"I won the last Game by being in love with Peeta. What would it look like if I just abandoned him now?"

"It would look very smart. I'm with Chell." Johanna stood next to her to emphasize the point. "For all we know, Peeta's already dead, Mockingjay. Can we even hear the cannons in this room?"

"Then I'll find out myself—"

"How? His body is already on its way to District Twelve by now…"

"He's _not _dead. And some things are worth dying for – yes, even worth the Mockingjay dying for." Katniss stared them down, but the intensity of her glare was undercut by Wheatley's excited cry of, "My god! You guys, I just got the most _amazing_ idea—"

Katniss looked down, her fists clenched and her eyes closed. Then she looked Chell square in the eyes. "Chell, you can leave this arena if you want, but I won't be with you."

Chell looked at her a moment longer, then turned away. "Fine, as you—" she froze. In the seam between the ceiling and walls, there was a camera. And next to the camera, there was a black nozzle. With a hiss, the nozzle began to emit a faintly visible, off-green cloud.

Chell reached out and gripped Finnick's arm, so tight he cried out with pain. "What is it—"

"Neurotoxin," she choked out, in a small voice that every Victor somehow heard.

Finnick yelled, "_Neurotoxin!_ Everybody, _RUN!_"

Lights, Camera – Action! –

From outside of what had been Cave Johnson's office, the cameras waited. The door burst open and Johanna Mason ran out, followed by Finnick, Wiress, Seeder, and Katniss. The last person to leave – the one that the Editor cut from the footage – carried a blue-lit personality core in addition to her portal gun. But she had barely glimpsed the outside when she spun on the heel of her boot and ran back into the chamber, already starting to fill with mist. When she re-emerged, she was running at full speed with her face scrunched up, like she was underwater, and she staggered under the weight of two personality cores, one blue, and one pink. But when she re-emerged, not a single Victor was in sight.

The catwalk that Finnick and Johanna took was immediately replaced by a twisting stairwell, which Wiress darted up before she realized that no one was there. The floor beneath Johanna's feet gave way as she ran into a patch of darkness, only to be replaced when Finnick ran over that same ground. Johanna fell more than thirty feet into the darkness, to land harmlessly on her feet, swearing. Only Katniss held on to Seeder's hand as they ran down what had become a blank white hallway, followed, as ever, by the cameras.

Chell almost shouted "Wait for me!" or "Where are you?" or just "_Katniss!_" but her voice failed her. She ran for a few paces down the corridor, but she could neither see a red-striped jumpsuit up ahead, nor hear any footfalls over the roar of machinery.

She spun on her heel, once, twice, until she had gone in a complete circle, eyes wide, seeing everything except what she wanted to see. Nothing that the cores said or sang registered with her.

The full force of her situation struck Chell. She was alone, in the facility that had gone rogue, her allies completely scattered. She had a single-portal device, and the two imperfect cores who could be guaranteed to never, ever be silent. The brief flicker in her life of human companionship and cooperation was over. She was alone.

The red gleam of a camera reflected out of the darkness, but no Voice spoke to her.

Eventually Chell stopped turning and turning, and fell still. The cores fell from her hands, still unheeded. She screwed her eyes shut, envisioning Seeder's map (what would happen to Seeder now), and the widening gyre of the Facility all around her.

'_And so the enchanted princess woke up from her slumber and realized her complete and utter insignificance in the scheme of the world. Less than a worm. Less than a mote of dust. With less power than either…_'

It took Chell a minute to realize that GLaDOS hadn't said that. When she did, her grip on the portal gun grew tighter and tighter, until her hands felt like they would snap.

'_Real or not real_,' she thought. '_That is not real. And I will not let Her enter my mind. She would not dare_.'

She turned behind her her, and saw, twining up the grey wall that hid Cave Johnson's office, a stairwell. She ran for it and began to ascend, moving upwards, at the best pace she could maintain.

Smiling From the Television Screen -

"… Aaaaand there you have it, folks! The Game of hide-and-go-seek is over! All the traps are sprung, and the mice have been chased from their little hidey-hole! There's seven tributes left and a lot of action left in store, folks! This is a game changer and no mistake. Don't miss a moment of this exciting action. This is Caesar Flickerman, and we'll be right back to the 75th Hunger Games after these messages."

And now, a word from our sponsors –

In Cave Johnson's office, the lights all went out, except three. There was complete silence, until a tiny voice piped up, "Space? Is this space?"

"Just goes to show. Even the toughest folk'll turn tail once a bit of deadly, paralyzing, nerve-destroying poison shows up. Not my Johanna, though. She'll be back, you mark my words. She'll come back for me with a bullwhip and a Winchester. You wait and see."

"Fact: Rick and Kevin are attempting to irritate me to death. It is not working. Much as I wish it would."

On the floor, a portal device glowed with a tiny blue light.

Lost and Finding -

That portal device belonged to Wiress. When she realized that she had left it behind she stopped and hand to prevent herself from dragging her palms along the cement wall until they bled. How could she have been so _foolish_?

"Stupid Nuts," she said to herself. "This is why they wanted Beetee in the first place."

And she remembered Beetee, and had her goal. She clenched her fingers tightly and began to climb stairs.

Johanna still had her ax and her portal device. She moved down the hall in complete silence, but nearly shrieked when she tured the corner – falling back immediately – and saw the rows of turrets staring at her.

At ankle-height, some ways away, lay a Discouragement Beam, and a small cube with reflective sides. She eyed it, contemplating.

Finnick hadn't even gone two hundred feet when he stepped into what was, without question, a testing arena.

The only thing that slowed Katniss down was her grip on Seeder's hand. The older woman's strides were more measured; perhaps she was regulating her strength and adrenaline; perhaps she was just not as spry as she once was. The tunnel that they ran down was just barely lit up enough for them to see the divide between floor and wall. That meant that they weren't surprised not to see anyone, and they weren't perturbed when the roar of machinery around – the Facility rearranging itself into some new and terrible game board – drowned out any footsteps that they obviously would have otherwise heard. Katniss did slow down when she heard Seeder panting beside her. She slowed from a full-tilt run to a brisk walk, taking the time to look around her properly. The sight of a camera nozzle following them spurred her to walk faster again.

Seeder said, "Katniss, listen."

Katniss listened. "No turrets, no beams – you don't think she'd release mutts in the arena this late, do you?"

"No, I mean _listen_."

"We're safe… we can slow down?"

"No. Katniss, really listen. What do you _not_ hear?"

Katniss stopped, and listened. She looked down both ends of the tunnel. "_CHELL!_" she yelled. "_FINNICK! WIRESS!_" after a pause, "_JOHANNA!_"

No answer came, not even an echo. She turned to Seeder. "They're gone…"

"What happens to the plan?" Seeder asked.

Katniss thought, looking at her portal device – black with a single red stripe. Marked _District Twelve, Test Subject Twenty-four_.

"Plan is in place," she said. "Even if it's just the two of us. We'll see what the arena holds… and don't _ever_ let go of my hand." She held it out, and Seeder took it.

"There's the Mockingjay I know," she said.

Before they set forth down the hall again, Katniss took one last, look back. But no one else appeared.

The hall grew lighter, and none of the details changed, except that they perceived a gap up ahead, where the floor dropped down, before the hallway finally ended. Katniss and Seeder both stopped in their tracks when they reached the dip in the floor, and realized that it was a threshold into a test chamber. This was a surprise; there had been no fanfare, no elevators or emancipation grills. The dip in the floor turned out to be stairs, and when they descended the stairs and turned right, a test chamber was waiting for them, waiting to be solved. A heat beam grilled the wall opposite itself, and reflective cubes were stashed away in impossibly high niches along the walls. At the other end of the room, a door was shut, with an orange 'X' glowing next to it.

Katniss scowled at the sight. "We're not playing that Game anymore," and turned around.

Just as Seeder took her arm, and was about to say something to the effect of "Think again," a light came on. A massive screen, set into the wall, flickered and turned on, an eye-wateringly bright white after their long sojourn among decayed fluorescent bulbs and screens of potato leaves. It did not have a test chamber number, but it did have two little pictogram people, getting hurt in various ways, leaping through portals, and, in the end, receiving cake and boxes topped with bows.

"Presents?" Katniss asked, pointing.

"_Food_," Seeder said meaningfully.

"How do we know it's not a lie?"

"We don't, but I'm not walking all the way back there to look for another way out. I think we've been referring to Her the wrong way all this time; She's not the Gamemaker, She's the Game itself. I have a feeling any route we take will lead us right back to where She wants us."

"But what about your ma—"

Seeder put a finger to her lips. Katniss nodded and glanced again at the screen, and noticed a new pictogram. A black arrow led from the picture of cake and presents to a picture of four little people, squaring off as if for a fight.

She glanced at the older woman; Seeder was looking at the same card.

Katniss pursed her lips and whistled four notes – four notes she had not forgotten, and would never forget, as long as she lived.

Seeder hummed them back.

And they started the test.

One hour, three minor burns, sixteen cusses, and one breathtaking aerial gambit later, a blue checkmark gleamed by the door, which opened. Katniss waited for Seeder before they crossed to the other side.

What they found within was a miniature Cornucopia – the proper kind, like would be found in a normal Hunger Game. There was, in fact, a cake – although even from three feet away they caught a whiff of what it was made of, and it was _not_ chocolate, flour, shortening, and eggs. There were tightly wrapped packets of food – tasteless, protein-rich nourishment – and small backpacks, which were in the same Aperture Science orange as Chell's jumpsuit.

Katniss looked away from the backpacks, and saw two weapons gleaming in the mouth of the Cornucopia. "Seeder." She bent down and pulled them out: a spear, and a bow with a quiver of twenty arrows, all manufactured in a smooth white material. They were perfectly crafted, with the little Aperture Science circle at one end.

It took Katniss a moment to notice how fast she was breathing. She barely heard Seeder saying drily, "Well, this can't be good."

Katniss lifted the bow and tested the string. It was perfectly sized for her – even better than the bow had been last year – and was surprisingly strong, for its light weight. For a moment she thought she could hear her father's voice – or Gale's – their voices blent together in her mind's ear:

"_Think of the bow as an extension of your arm, the arrow as an extension of your eye. Stay cool, stay focused, Catnip. You're a natural hunter_."

She fingered the bow. '_A natural hunter_,' she thought. '_Is that, really, all there is to me_?'

Seeder was talking. Katniss shook her head. "What?"

"I was saying, if this were a normal Game, we would be overdue for some kind of showdown. If Cashmere and Gloss are still alive, they would be likely choices. What do you think?"

Katniss felt the camera to their left, tracking her every motion. She thought, suddenly, '_Prim must be so relieved to see me right now. Prim, and Gale, and all of District Twelve_.' She slung the bow over her shoulder, and forced herself to say, "I think we should go for it."


	17. Alone With Your Thoughts

Alone With Your Thoughts

A/N: Hello, this is just a disclaimer, to remind you all, in case you forgot, that I don't own either _Portal_ or _The Hunger Games_, and that's probably a good thing, all told.

I would also like to sincerely thank my readers for continuing to stick around! And, please, feel free to leave a review. I appreciate every single word of feedback, appreciation and criticism.

Thanks again for reading – now, enjoy this somewhat episodic chapter.

Noise was everywhere, but it wasn't loud enough to drown out Johanna Mason's thoughts.

What Johanna would never have confessed to anyone was that she wished Katniss Everdeen had looked at her, talked to her. She wished that, when they were talking about their talents – '_And by the way, fat old Haymitch Abernathy taking up leather? That image was just too funny, and too disturbing, to let go of _' – she'd wished that they would start to talk about their own talents, that maybe someone – like Katniss – would turn to Johanna and ask, "What's your talent?"

And then Johanna could have tossed her head back and refused to say. Or Johanna could have looked the questioner in the eye and given them a one-word answer that would baffle them even more. Keep 'em guessing.

No one had cared enough to ask. Not that she was surprised.

She was, however, pissed off that the _Gamemaker_, of all people, had somehow figured it out. Not only figured it out, but decided to parade it in front of the entire nation, making it a game for her life.

She wasn't sure if anyone outside of District Seven even _remembered_ what her talent was supposed to be, let alone why she'd picked it and why she'd dropped it.

Probably the rest of Panem was laughing at her, right now.

The noise stopped and Johanna slowed to a halt, leaning over to catch her breath. She looked around. She was in a test chamber, surrounded on every side by turrets. At the moment she was in the blind spots of several platoons of turrets, each facing in different directions. She could almost see her path in front of her – a way to walk, a series of escalating platforms to leap through and fall through – with portals, of course.

She was still panting. God, she was getting too old for this.

The noise began again. The gun turrets came to life: "_Hello? Who's there? Do I hear a waltz_?"

The red beams of their sights flickered, darkening and brightening again, with the three-quarter time.

Johanna was going to punch someone for this.

She held the portal gun out in front of her like it was the arm and shoulder of a rather short partner. She counted off, "One… two… three… _and_…" And waltzed into the midst of turrets.

As long as she kept in time, kept on beat, and hit her mark, the turrets were lulled into a state of somnolence, unwilling to open fire. All Johanna had to do was step in time, twirl, pirouette occasionally, and stay perfectly in tempo. She kept her eyes darting to and fro, at the turrets, their sides pumping in rhythm, and at the elevated platforms, growing nearer and nearer, as she wondered how to coordinate the portals with the beat.

And Johanna Mason cursed the day she had chosen "Dancing" for her talent.

Waltz and Riptide -

'_I'm going to die_,' Finnick thought. He'd always been aware of the possibility, and he'd had his moments of terror, but this true, core-to-his-being fright was not something he'd felt since his last Game. Until the trident had fallen from the sky, he was just the pretty boy from District Four with the bad luck to be the oldest Career eligible in his year and sex. He'd lived each moment feeling like he was in freefall. And now the feeling returned, long-fall boots notwithstanding.

GLaDOS had returned him to a test chamber.

He solved the tests (conducted on a shifting floor that swayed and pitched like a boat in a storm) with as much of his attention as he could muster, trying to avoid the riptide of fear that never fully left him. He was alone, or as good as. District Thirteen, he was sure, had given up. Oh, he believed in the revolution's cause – believed in it with all his heart, as had Cinna – but he didn't believe in the District's alliance.

This matter boiled down, as did so many elements of his life, to Annie. No one from District Thirteen – that he'd spoken to – could understand why he insisted on rescuing Annie Cresta, for any reason other than sentimentality, and the desire to take away from Panem every last one of her Victors. To them, to the rest of the nation, she was nothing but gibbers and mutters, a broken doll, a broken weapon. Nothing inside.

Finnick knew better. So between Annie and freedom…

He swallowed. No, there was the riptide, waiting to drag him down.

"_Your heart isn't in this, Finnick_."

Her Voice jolted him out of his reverie. But he looked around, camera to camera, and heard nothing else, so he shrugged and continued the test. When he had first entered the arena she had taunted him and made disparaging remarks about his sexuality and District – nothing he couldn't handle. Now, though, she only gave him the barest of acknowledgements, stating the flattest of facts, such as the one above. It only cemented his certainty that she would soon be done with him.

He rolled his eyes at the nearest camera, and continued to test, avoiding the sewage water twenty feet below that would kill him for some unspecified reason. It filled the Testing Chamber with a foul stench, but Finnick, who spent part of his life mired in the odors of fish guts, seaweed, and cold sea breezes, and the other part drowning in Capitol perfumes of every sort, found he didn't mind.

Finnick completed that test, and moved on to the next. A cannon went off, but there was no news as to whom it represented. Just another face taken away from the Resistance, and from the Capitol. Finnick heaved a sigh, taking note of a gaping hole in the wall that he was walking past. Up ahead, there was another. In lieu of focusing on the death, he focused on the holes. Through them, the steel girders supporting the wall, and wires of mangled machinery, were visible.

He had passed by the fourth hole, and the doorway to the next testing chamber was in sight, when he heard a scream. It was coming from the broken place in the wall. He froze, not daring to believe what he had heard. He turned.

The scream sounded again, followed by words – "_Finnick! FINNICK!_"

Finnick ran. He didn't even think, didn't try to reason how impossible it was, how wrong, how it had crossed a line even Snow wouldn't cross – he tore through the ravaged wall, leaping over broken metal and dizzying gaps, and when he heard the scream again – "_Finnick! Help me!_" he answered, "Annie, Annie, I'm coming!"

Towards the Long-Term Storage Vaults –

Wiress climbed, and climbed, and climbed.

She counted every step, every rung, every platform. That was her only measure of marking time. Even though Beetee had helped her, years ago, to break the habit of counting, she counted.

She would find him.

'_And what then_?' she thought. '_Find him, and die? Find him, and try to break open into the computers again? We'll die if we do that. We'll die anyway. We were dead the minute the Quarter Quell was announced_.'

Cold at her back. Winds from somewhere unseen.

Colder still, behind her, the glare of the camera, keeping a steady pace with her, always.

The path grew clearer before her. She followed, her brain supplying numbers as easily as her feet took each step.

Through the numbers, she thought, '_The Computer wants me to find Beetee._ _The Gamemaker wants to unite us before she kills us. Kills stupid useless crazy Wiress, was never any use to anyone at all_.'

'_She'll kill me,_' Wiress thought, her jaw set and her hands trying to shake away their tension. '_But I'll find Beetee first_.'

Ahead of her she heard a _hsssss_, like of steam escaping a valve. "_Good morning! You have been in suspension for –_"

Wiress heard someone yell "_Beetee!_" and didn't realize until she was running at full tilt that it had been her. She heard the camera chasing after her, closer and closer. She could almost _feel_ the attention of Panem zeroing in on her, closing in like a flood, the waters waiting to engulf her.

A door was open ahead. '_It's a trap._' Wiress gripped the doorjamb so her momentum propelled her into the foyer of a small room, garishly and shabbily decorated with a cheap tropical mural and a dead television screen.

There was a stripped mattress in the center of the room, and Beetee was lying, half-on the mattress and half-on the floor, like a little boy refusing to go to school. He wasn't dead.

"Beetee—" Wiress knelt by him, pulling him up, "I found you, it's me, it's Wiress. I found you, and it's time to get up now, Beetee, time to get up."

She looked at him, from his feet (unshod from their long-fall boots), to his feebly twitching hands, to his face. His eyes were trying to focus on her. Maybe he was trying to smile, but his mouth twisted in a horrible spasm.

'_Gassed. Neurotoxin, like Chell warned us_,' Wiress thought, still stroking Beetee's hair and ear with a soothing, automatic gesture and saying nonsense about school and leaving and going home. '_Underfed. Immune system, compromised. He's going to die. He's dying. He is dead._'

But Beetee wasn't dead, and he finally managed to speak, causing the storm of Wiress' thoughts to fall completely quiet, and focus on him.

"Wiress – it's okay! It's okay, She knows. The game is up. It'll be okay. Wiress, glad to see you."

His voice faded. Wiress' hand stilled at his temple. Her eyes never left his face. His face had stopped its spasms and grown slack. He looked up at her for another minute, and then his eyes unfocused. She felt his heartbeat fade.

Wiress started to shake. She reached out and closed his eyes completely. She couldn't stop shaking.

_No_. She had to stop. There had to be something. Something to do other than just sit here, staring. Her eyes focused on the mattress. There, a task, however small. She lowered Beetee's head, braced her arms under his shoulder and his knees, and hoisted him onto the bed. Fortunately he had been spare and thin; even so it was a painful effort. She straightened out his legs, folded his hands over his chest. And the storm of thoughts started up again, telling her she was being crazy, just copying what Katniss Everdeen had done in the last Game, that nothing she could do would make any difference to Beetee anymore.

Finally, she stepped back from the bed, where her mentor, ally, teacher, and friend lay, still, out of anyone's power to be hurt.

Why couldn't she stop shaking?

A cannon fired. Beetee's cannon.

The sound of it brought Wiress to her knees, to the floor. He was _gone_.

But it also snapped her out of her own thoughts. And she realized she wasn't shaking: the entire room was vibrating.

Wiress flashed back to her Victory Tour, when she had visited District Six, and the ground had shook, setting her off-kilter, curled up in a corner of the shining ballroom where the Feast had been held.

'_Duck and cover, Wiress, remember, don't panic, just duck and cover_.' Beetee had said that. So Wiress curled up in a tight little ball as the room –

Was _lifted_.

Through the gap between her hands she could see bits of the wall flaking off, ripping apart to show the skeleton of the room, and she could glimpse movement. The room was being moved, taken away – was soaring even now through the Facility –

Wiress hung on, counting every single second and half-second.

She could feel the room swinging, spinning, maybe this was the death that the Gamemaker had finally planned for Wiress, for her to simply be smashed between walls like a bug, to die together with Beetee – No. That'd be too kind – and she wondered if Beetee's body would rest in the position she'd lain for him. God damnit. Nothing lasted. Nothing Wiress had ever done, or could ever do, would change anything—

There was a horrible grating noise, a screech that drowned out Wiress' thoughts, and the rattle through her bones, of the room skidding to a grinding halt.

There was silence, and stillness. Wiress just started to uncurl herself when a hissing, mechanical noise entered. She tensed up again. There was a moment of noises – a few buzzes, clicks, and softer _thump_ noises. And then there was a small voice, very similar to a gun turret's voice:

"_Thank you for choosing Aperture Science Inter-Facility Monorail. Have a Pleasant Day_."

Wiress still kept silent, hearing those words over and over again, until the noises ceased. When she dared to uncurl herself and sit up, Beetee's body was gone from the mattress. In its place was a portal device.

Wiress stared at the portal gun – black with a blue stripe, it had been Beetee's, not her own – and then looked around. The room – now in a very sorry state indeed – had been lifted to a Docking Station. There were doors around, and it was well-lit enough, and totally deserted. They appeared to be on the rim of a cliff. Wiress walked towards the edge, looking down the precipice towards the dizzying fall below. A floor was distantly visible.

Massive size, constant new terrain, and a malicious intelligent more deadly than any mutt: truly, this was the perfect arena for a Quarter Quell.

Then why did Beetee say "It's okay – She knows"?

Wiress tried to answer the question, leaning slightly back and forth on the balls of her feet at the edge of the precipice. She could almost hear the gasps from the Capitol as she played chicken with gravity. She glanced over her shoulder, just to make sure of the camera.

Why would he say that? He was dying. His brain had been poisoned. Nothing that came out of his mouth would make sense, in those circumstances. He might not have even been talking about the Computer. He might have been talking about President Coin, or Katniss Everdeen.

"The game is up."

What did he mean, 'the game is up'?

It meant nothing. It was the insane ramblings of a dying fool.

"No!" Wiress yelled at the gap in front of her. And then, again, "NO!" so loud her voice echoed. Again, she yelled "_NO_!" loud and long, so her voice reverberated in the chasm.

She covered her mouth. She'd forgotten she could make sounds like that.

More quietly, she said to herself, "There has to be a reason. There _will _be a reason, even if I have to make it up entirely by myself. Why did he say that? The game is up –"

She thought, still swaying slightly on the balls of her feet. Ideas, half conclusions and half guesses, swung through her mind. What if Beetee was the one who triggered the change in GLaDOS, who triggered her complete shift of the arena, her introduction of neurotoxin. But how did he trigger it? What did he say?  
>"She knows – the game is up."<p>

What if GLaDOS was surprised to learn that it was a Hunger Game? What if Snow had tricked her into hosting the Quarter Quell? How would She react to being tricked?

'_She separated the Victors from each other. She wanted to restore the original status quo_,' Wiress thought. '_She also separated the Victors from Chell._ _And she led me to find Beetee. Did She want me to hear that message?_'

A new conclusion occurred to Wiress. It was so absurd, at first, so completely ridiculous, that at first she wanted to laugh, but the conclusion started to take other thoughts, facts, notions, and warp them around itself.

_She wanted the Victors to escape. She was ending the Game on her own terms._

Wiress shook her head. "Now, Wiress. You're crazy. Everyone knows, you're crazy."

But the idea wouldn't go away. And she finally turned back from the precipice and looked at the portal gun on the bed.

Beetee was gone, on his way home already to District Three.

It was one, two, three, four, five, six, seven steps to reach the portal device.

For Beetee's sake, and for her own, Wiress would find out the truth. She gazed up again at the vast space below and above the Docking Chamber, picked a – the one that would demand the fewest steps to reach – and set off through it.

Chasing the Impossible –

Wherever Annie was, she was moving. Or someone was moving her.

Finally, Finnick felt that he was actually gaining, that her voice was staying in one place. And he could hear her saying, "I can't see, I can't see, where am I? Help, someone!"

He yelled, "Annie, just stay calm, I'm on my way!" as he fired a portal to cross a gap between catwalks, hardly even noticing his surroundings except to cross them as quickly as possible. "Annie, I'll be with you in a minute, just breathe and think of the – think of…"

He'd come to a dead end. The hallway was shorter than he'd expected, and there were no doors. Then –

He heard sobbing, from behind him. He turned and retraced his steps, more slowly now. And he found a door, one he hadn't even noticed the first time through this area. Annie's voice was coming from the other side.

He tried the door. It was locked.

"Finnick!"

"I'm here, Annie! Just calm down – think of the sea, I'm going to get you out of there."

He looked around, brain instantly categorizing what he could and could not use. There was, far below, a white patch on the floor – it looked like a glop of Conversion Gel – and there was another patch on a far away wall. If he conserved velocity and –

"Finnick? I can't feel my legs. I – I'm scared, Finnick, it's so dark in here."

"I'm – I'm coming, Annie, just hold on."

He retraced his step, found a sufficiently sized chunk of loose wall, and hauled it over with the portal gun. Then, carefully, he fired two portals – one at the patch in the floor, and one at the patch on the wall.

"Annie?" he said to the door. "If you can, please just stand back. I'm going to try to break the door down."

No answer, but he could imagine Annie biting her lower lip and nodding hastily, like she had a way of doing. He dropped the chunk of wall into the lower portal, and stood well back from the door as the chunk sailed out of the wall portal and hit the door with a tremendous _SLAM_.

Let the odds be kind, please don't let that have hit Annie – but it had knocked the door loose. Finnick tested it, and pushed with all his strength. It gave way.

Light spilled into the entirely darkened chamber. "Annie!" Finnick called. "Are you okay?"

"_Aaah!_ What is that – oh, it's light. Oh, it's you, Finnick. Finnick! I'm so glad to see you—"

He could hear her voice, but where was she? There was a twitchy teal light in the corner, but no sign of a human –

Finnick froze. His hand groped for a lightswitch, and he found one, and flipped it on. He stood in a small janitorial closet, with mops and brooms, spray bottles filled with foul-smelling liquids, and, in one corner, a wriggling, agitated Personality Core.

"Oh my god!" She said, her voice high-pitched, quavering with joy, "I _knew_ you would rescue me, Finnick, I knew you would!" The lids of her optic dilated and contracted to match perfectly with her words. Her optic itself glowed with a sea-green light, with a faint spiral pattern.

Finnick took a cautious step towards her. "Annie?" he asked.

"Yes, it's me – I don't know how I got here, the last thing I remember they were interviewing me about you and I was refusing to say anything and started to cry, and when I woke up I was here, and I can't feel my legs, and – and, Finnick, I'm frightened. What's wrong? Why do you look like that?"

Finnick couldn't even begin to imagine what his face looked like right now. He was probably the only person in Panem who didn't know, considering that he saw, peeking between the handles of the broom, a camera lens.

But through his shock, and confusion, and horrible, paralyzing fear, he knelt down and laid a blistering hand on the hull of the Personality Core. At worst – he couldn't even think of at worst. At best, this was a horrible, sick joke. But here – in front of him – Annie needed him. It came down to that. As always.

The minute he touched her, she seemed to grow calmer, grow still. He cleared his throat, and said, "I'm just surprised to see you here, that's all. But you don't need to be scared. I'm here, Annie… I'm right here."


	18. The Theft

**The Theft**

To all my loyal readers, I thank you for continuing to tune in. I thank you all deeply. I still do not own Portal, or the Hunger Games. I hope you enjoy this next chapter.

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><p>"D'ye think she's mad at us?" Wheatley asked Mimi.<p>

"She" in this case was Chell. The question had been delivered in an undertone, with a squeaky sidelong glance (his optical bearings needed to be oiled). Mimi, in response, had lifted her upper core handle in an expressive way, and said nothing. After a pause, Wheatley gave an electronic cough and said, more loudly, "Really marvelous, this climbing business. And you're doing a _fantastic_ job of it. Sen-sational."

Chell gave no indication that she'd heard him. She continued her ascent up the stairwell, eyes always fixed upwards. She made slow progress, with two cores to carry. But she didn't stop. She'd developed a sort of bouncing stride, as if to make her boots carry as much of the weight as they could. She didn't want to leave Wheatley answerless and excluded (a state of being to which he seemed accustomed, as he just kept talking), but now that _She_ was all around her, now that Chell was once more a subject to be observed, Chell had to stay silent. She wasn't even sure if it was conscious; in the face of such terrifying and complete _control_, when Chell felt afraid – and she _was afraid_ of GLaDOS, she'd be insane not to be – she clammed up, and couldn't speak even when she wanted to.

Besides, she wouldn't give GLaDOS the satisfaction of hearing her voice.

By the happenstance gleam of red in a corner, Chell knew she was being watched. But GLaDOS made no other move to contact her.

After a pause, Wheatley hit on a bright new idea and said, "You know, this is probably for the best. I mean, to be getting out of that 'Game' – it's not really a Game at all, is it? It's a war. A teeny tiny war. Monstrous, really. You'd have to be a monster to win one."

Chell made a sound – a low "Heh," but nothing more. She slowed to a halt, next to an ajar panel in the wall that had a red hand print next to it. Chell peered through the gap.

"Um, no, negatory, a red handprint is usually taken, that is, in most aboriginal countries, to be a very bad thing, being as red is the color of okay so you're going to charge right through. Or you could do that, right," he said as Chell put the cores down, shoved the panel aside, and went through the gap. After a moment, she pulled the two cores in behind her.

The nook had no furnishings, and no other way out – but no cameras either. There were decayed newspapers piled on the floor, and just enough space for Chell to put down the cores, and curl in the fetal position.

"Oh, so, you're sleeping now? In power-down, deactivate, install new updates automatically mode? Does this mean you won't hear me? Oh, you won't _want_ to hear me? Fine, then. Perfectly fine. Sweet dreams – well, I personally prefer sweet automatic updates."

Mimi cleared her throat self-consciously, and sang a scale, as if warming up. When Chell made no move to silence her, Wheatley said, "Hey, why is _she_ allowed to make noise and I'm not?"

Chell raised her hand to him – making him go "Sorry I didn't mean it I'll clam up—" but she just patted his hull, as if to say, "just let this be."

She lifted Wheatley so that his optic was very close to her face. He could see her pupils contracting, as if the light was a little uncomfortable. "Are you all right, l-love?" he asked her.

Chell was almost certain she would be blinded by afterimages and shadows, but she needed him this close, close enough that she could pretend there was no one else listening in, as she said – barely using her voice at all – "What was your idea?"

"What idea? OH! You mean that brilliant idea that I had right before everything went tits-up, so to speak?" His lower optic lid gave a little upward twitch. "Heh heh… tits."

Chell glared at him.

"Sorry, I'm a mature and capable core. I'm – anyway. Someone said Peeta might be dead, that his body, his shuffled-off mortal coil, as it were, was on its way to District Twelve. And I thought, coo, why did no one think of it before? Just make everyone _seem_ like they're dead – ship 'em out home – and revive them once they're out of here! Foolproof, really. mean, it worked in _Romeo and Juliet_, didn't it? I'm not sure _how _we'll fool her – each of the tributes has a little whatsit in their elbows – somewhere in that vicinity – that says things like blood and heart rate and things like that. And… well, I'll work on it tonight, how about that, while you're in low-power mode?"

Chell nodded, and made a gesture, pointing at her eyes, and at the hallway beyond.

"Yes, yes, I'll raise the alarm, no problem. I'll scream and shout at the first sign of trouble. I'd – I'd neverletanythinghappentoyou," he said in a rush, his optic suddenly contracting, and then looking down, up – anywhere but her face.

Chell's face was blank – if she was speaking, words would have completely failed her. Instead, she pressed her forehead against his hull, right against the top of his optic. She felt his internal machinery whirr faster, and then slower again, reminiscent of a heartbeat.

She pulled back, giving a little smile. He stammered out "Goodnight" as she turned him around to face the door. Mimi she placed looking in an opposite direction – because you never knew.

Mimi began to sing, hesitatingly, "_Go to sleep, you little baby, don't you weep pretty baby…_" but Chell shook her head and curled tighter into herself.

Then Mimi sang something else, something Italian, rhythmic, and crooning, that made Chell think that the core had not forgotten that a part of her had once been – once upon a time – a mother.

- Not as Deep as the Love I'm in -

"Finnick? What's happened to me?"

In the Capitol, someone was bound to be cracking a joke. Something about how it had taken Annie Cresta long enough to notice that something was different. Finnick had picked her up like a sack of potatoes and hoisted her along as he left the supply closet, darting from shadow to shadow, alert of any stray robot.

In actuality, the darting and the overplayed alertness was purely for the Capitol crowd. Finnick knew damn well that cameras were recording his every move and every word that Annie – _Annie_? Could this metal sphere be _Annie_? – spoke. But the moment he had carried her out of the supply closet, he had seen a camera, and thought about how this would appear to the Capitol. To the Gamemaker. To District Four. And playing the role of the paranoid protector was the only way to keep himself from collapsing on the ground and screaming, or tearing out his hair and screaming, or leaping at the nearest camera and screaming.

So it was really remarkable that he _wasn't_ screaming when he answered Annie's question, saying, "I'm not sure. Tell me again, what the last thing you remember was?"

"I remember crying."

Sad to say, that was not an uncommon answer for Annie to give in any situation. "Someone was asking you questions?"

"Yes – yes, questions about you."

"Were you alone with them? Was it at the Capitol?" Finnick's imagination was conjuring up a small, windowless room, in the kind of building that no one ever left. And he wanted the entire nation to imagine it, too.

"No… I mean, yes, I mean, we were at the Capitol… I went there because I wanted to look after you, Finnick… But it was on camera. They were interviewing you because you're one of the final eight."

"I am? I've… wow. I've actually lost count."

"Well, there's nine left now, but it's been getting so quiet lately, so few cannons, but the Capitol decided to have the interviews a little early, and no one really knows what happened to Beetee, but his signal vanished after he blacked out from that gas. One talked to the Gamemaker, and then there were nine," she said in a little singsong.

"So it was for the broadcast?"

"Oh, yes. I'm quite sure they were interviewing your family in District Four. Poor Mags. Poor Mags' family. Finnick, she volunteered to enter the arena for _me_. She's dead now because of me!" Despite the fact that she had no tear ducts or vocal cords, a wavering, strained note had entered her voice. Finnick halted and folded himself onto the floor, bending over Annie so that he could touch her, so she could see him.

"No, Annie, sssh, don't be like that – ssssh, ssssh, it's all right."

"No, it's not, Finnick, that makes the death toll twenty-four, all twenty-four dead—"

"Annie, it's what we agreed on. Mags knew what she was going in to. She was willing to die. She was happy to see – to give you your life." Now Finnick's voice was the one that quivered, at the thought of Annie's life being reduced to _this_. "She was old, her life was over."

"But I'm nothing, Finnick! She gave herself up for nothing—"

"No, Annie," he said, looking her straight in her optic, keeping his voice firm – really it wasn't too unlike old times. "You're not nothing. You are a daughter of the sea, and Mags counted you as one of her own. Remember? We talked about it. It's okay."

Annie squinted her optic. "We did?"

"Yes… don't you…" Finnick stopped.

All of District Four's living Victors had gathered on a borrowed boat, the night before the Quarter Quell Reaping. They had talked about volunteering, they had talked about their previous Games. They had talked about the future, and the Mockingjay, and about their families and who would look out for them. They had said good-bye. And all this had been held on a boat belonging to a friend, one that would be big enough to hold all of them (and the beer), but not carry any bugs or microphones or recording equipment. Nothing that would carry their words back to the Capitol…

… nothing that this Gamemaker could use.

"Don't you remember?" he said. "Mags put her hands on either side of your face – just like this – and told you that you had a whole life ahead of you, a life full of more beauty and joy than you could begin to imagine? And you smiled – and kind of blushed – and turned your head away, to look at the sea?" It was so strange, so strange to talk to this metal ball that had Annie's voice as if it possessed her warmth, her flickering, shy smile, to stroke the top of her hull as he would her hair. It was so unsettlingly _wrong_, but he kept talking, because caring for Annie was what he did, no matter what. "You had a flower in your hair, and Mags told you she wasn't afraid to die."

"I… I don't remember… but that sounds beautiful."

A new idea occurred to Finnick. He picked the core up and said, "Let's keep going."

So they made their way through the maze, with Annie offering advice – which Finnick always took. She seemed to calm down, assessing the dangers of the arena just as he did. Along the way, he asked her questions, at first just simple questions to make her think of happy things, of District Four and the sea. And then he asked questions about her Game – brief questions, comparing it to their current Game. And then he asked her, "What did I say to you, the morning of the Reaping, when we watched the dawn break over the sea?"

And Annie was quiet for a long time, before she said, "I seem to remember… you told me that…" and she said in a singsong, "The wind is up, the sky is blue, it's beautiful, and so are you. Dear Annie, let me see you smile… Finnick?" she said after a pause, jerking him out of his thoughts. "Did I get it right?"

"Yes, yes, of course you did," he said, looking her straight on, smiling as earnestly as he could, so she wouldn't realize he was lying.

"Am I still beautiful?" her voice was a tiny tremble, her optic wide.

"Yes. You're always beautiful. And you're going to survive this arena, Annie."

"Oh, Finnick – but not without you."

"Don't worry. I'm not going to leave you."

- I know not if I sink or swim -

Some hours later, in sleep, Chell reached out her hand. She wanted to touch something in her dream – something close, something good – but her hand met empty space.

In the part of her brain that was ever alert, that remembered the layout of the cubbyhole in which she had fallen asleep, knew that that was _wrong_. She jerked awake. The first thing she saw was her arm, extended into the empty space in front of her. Empty. The cubbyhole was empty, except for her.

She let out an involuntary sound – something between a gasp and a moan as she looked around for some trace – _any_ trace – of the cores. Nothing there but the portal gun, still glowing. She crawled on hands and knees out of the cubbyhole, checking the ceiling. No, Wheatley hadn't found a way to miraculously re-attach himself to the Management Rail. He was nowhere to be found. Mimi had vanished. The hall was completely silent.

Chell jumped when GLaDOS addressed her, and cursed herself for her weakness, doubling back to seize the portal gun.

"_Rise and shine_."

As Chell crawled out of the cubbyhole and stood tall, she tried to choose which way to go – to try and rescue the cores, or to keep escaping? And did it make any difference? – while appearing fierce and resolute and completely impervious to what _She_ might say.

"_Did you really think I wouldn't find you? Did you really think I would be distracted from my most valuable test subject?" _

Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit.

"_I took them away for their own happiness, you know. They would have realized quickly, what a monster you were – how you coldly left your companions to the neurotoxin_… _And I thought that taking away my personality cores without a goodbye was best. As I recall, you don't handle goodbyes very well. You like them to have an incendiary quality to them_, _and I can't have you destroying more of my priceless equipment. I also can't have you interfering in the 75__th__ Annual Hunger Game…_"

And like that, Chell's mind was made up. She started to run in the direction she'd arbitrarily pegged as "away." But still GLaDOS talked…

"_I have plans, and sub-plans, and counterplans in case the first plans don't work out – and plans to switch things up, just in case I get bored. And there's a place for you in every one of them. So run, if you wish. But remember: In here, the odds are _ever_ in my favor_."

Chell kept running.

GLaDOS moved the forefront of her consciousness away, letting the little lab rat run through the maze. The two stolen cores had not yet reached the central chamber; She had other things to attend to.

She could almost feel the tension of the Capitol audience, deprived of bloodshed for so long, like an orchestra on the verge of striking up its first note. But a smart conductor didn't start at the climax. Things had to _crescendo_.

For starters…

GLaDOS' cameras focused on the District Six female, who was, astoundingly, still alive. She had sweated, shivered, and hallucinated her way through the upheavals, even when her District partner had vanished, to be replaced by a cannon blast. It was an impressive display of fortitude. District Six should be proud of her.

But she – what was her name? Quincy Oswald – was a loose end, and needed to be cut…

- District Six's Pride and Joy –

Quincy was _lucid_. It had been years and years, but she was finaly seeing and feeling clearly. The clouds were gone. The morphling was out of her system. When had she gotten so thin and pale? How long had she been in here? How many were left? She curled in a corner, where nothing could sneak up on her and her jelly-weak legs could rest.

She took off the boots, wondering where she got covered in blue and orange paint. A sense returned to her—she and Edgar had played in the paint, had laughed together. Now Edgar was dead. And she would die, too. And in such an ugly place.

She closed her eyes, and could remember District Six – the endless blue sky overhead, the heat of the sun blanketing her skin, the taste of thyme and sumac. And after a fire raged the land, the mountains would be covered in – what were they called? – waving hands of orange and pink, yellow and red – she could _see_ them, _smell_ them – she remembered—

"Smokeflowers," she said out loud, her voice raspy from disuse. "Smokeflowers. Smokeflowers."

She tilted her head back, remembering with clarity and joy. It would all be over soon. It wouldn't be so bad, then, to die … she wouldn't have to be in pain or be weak anymore. She would go home, and nourish the smokeflowers that would bloom when the fire that caught all over Panem had died down. It would be nice to rest, to really _rest_.

She heard footsteps, coming closer. She opened her eyes.

Coming closer, into focus, was a woman in a jumpsuit of silver and black. Blood dripped down her front, a faded stain dribbling down from her mouth. Ah, the District Two tribute. As she approached, she seemed to bring the Games, and the Capitol, with her.

She could almost hear the commentary now:

"_Ooh,_ I don't think anyone saw _this_ coming!"

Always so overdone, the dramatics… this Career was finding it hard to put one foot in front of the other…

"And now the last surviving tribute approaches – the suspense is tangible – this is the big showdown!"

And she remembered, throughout her Victory Tour, her recap, her training… even to her Reaping… beneath her terror and shock… she'd been so _annoyed_…

"This Career is unarmed – maybe little Quincy will stand a chance after all!"

They had never gotten her name right…

The Career was standing over her.

The old woman raised her head…

… and, before she could help it, chuckled.

Below the glaring, desperate eyes, beneath the days-old bloodstains – Enobaria was toothless.

The laughter was not a good idea. The Career's hands found the old woman's throat, pulled her from the wall, and the old woman began to gasp. But she didn't kick, she didn't struggle. The only protest she made was to whisper: "My name…"

Enobaria paused. The cameras swooped in to catch this last confession:

"My name… is Querencia."

That said, the Victor from District Six closed her eyes.

- District Two's Pride and Joy -

Enobaria had been mad – _no _onelaughed at a Career, _no one _laughed at Victor, _no one laughed _at a warrior of District Two – but she let the old woman have her say. And then, she made it quick.

She put down the body, fighting an urge to wash her hands. The District Six biddy had looked far too much like her grandmother, dead and buried now these past ten years.

Enobaria went back to collect her portal gun, hoping to find food soon. She wanted out of this arena, and she could win with her own bare hands.

She continued down a hallway, turned a corner, and stared. A tribute in green – Johanna Mason, she would have bet on it – was waltzing solo, while on every surface, gun turrets beamed her way, keeping time.

If Enobaria could speak, she would have probably cussed out of sheer confusion.

Johanna saw her and stopped waltzing.

For a minute they just stared at each other, mutually embarrassed and confused as hell.

Then Enobaria figured that if one of them didn't _do_ something quickly, they were going to do something really stupid like _laugh_, and then this would just get worse.

So she ran towards the District Seven tribute.

And the overture gave way to the first movement…


	19. Not Repeating, Rhyming

**Not Repeating But Rhyming**

Disclaimer: I don't own Portal or The Hunger Games, and I'm sorry for the delay. I hope that you all enjoy this next chapter!

The chapter title is taken from the quote, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes."

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><p>The doors of Cave Johnson's office were still thrown open. The inside was full of shadows. Wiress looked hard, but she couldn't see as much as a wisp of sick-colored neurotoxin. And there were lights within – she could just barely make them out. She tore off a sleeve of her jumpsuit and took a deep breath. She pressed the cloth to her nose and mouth and darted forward. She ran into the office, heard a few shouts of surprise from the abandoned cores, and set her hand around the light on the floor.<p>

"I knew ye'd come back for us!" shouted Rick with triumph.

She ran out again, into the fluorescent lights, and breathed. Her portal device gleamed in her hands.

"Uh… Lady? We're still here… Lady?"

She walked away from the office, and the voices calling out to her from there. She was ready for anything, now.

- Hiding and Observing -

A cannon sounded. Annie gave a shudder and fell still. "One more drowned," she muttered. "Dark portal to the wall parallel."

Finnick shot a dark blue ball of energy, and the window immediately behind them shimmered, and filled with a new vista. Moving platforms, right at a level with his feet, running into a wall. He picked up the core, who whispered, "Careful, careful… Not yet, not yet…"

Wiress watched them. She had found the obstacle course from the other side, and had wedged herself into a wall panel beside a hard light bridge generator. She watched as they traversed the platforms, and found the bridge, and placed it where they needed to walk. Wiress knew that this was not a good thing for an ally to do, but she wanted to study the core in Finnick's hands more closely. It sounded like Annie – it talked in her cadences, in her vocabulary. Somehow it managed to even _move_ like her.

Wiress knew what it was. Unless GLaDOS had managed to snitch the Victor and upload her brain into the machine, like had happened with the other cores – which was unlikely, considering the jealous possession that Snow had of all of his Victors – then the Gamemaker had cobbled together what she could. The footage of Annie Cresta's Game was easily accessible; almost as easily found was footage of her interview, her post-game interview, her interviews as a Mentor and a Victor in later years. Putting together an artificial intelligence from those recorded words and recorded gestures wouldn't be too hard. It could be a shallow, but impeccable simulation.

But it wouldn't be Annie Cresta.

Wiress had to admire the Gamemaker for thinking of it. Even Snow would be proud. But did Finnick realize?

Then she heard Finnick say, "Portal up there? All right—" and Wiress was alert at once, because that was wrong – she had her portal gun at the ready as Finnick fired –

The hard light bridge underneath his feet vanished, and he and the core started to fall, but Wiress fired twice, her mind putting the pieces together as Finnick pulled the core to him –

And Finnick landed, safely, on a hard light bridge that miraculously appeared a foot above the water's surface. He reclaimed his gun and shot a portal to the other edge of the bridge. It wasn't until he got to solid ground that he thought to ask where the bridge had come from.

And by that time, Wiress was once again out of sight.

It was nice, not being the center of attention.

- Katniss, Alone and Not -

The District One tributes should have been quite content. They had been given weapons, manufactured from pale plexiglass – a short sword, satisfyingly sharp, and a broadsword with a satisfying heft to it. The air in the underground arena had changed somehow: now it was more like a _proper_ Game, now the hunt was on. And they were far, far past ready to be the hunters. But something nagged at Cashmere. She couldn't help but feel that this Gamemaker was especially fond of symmetry.

"If you were a Gamemaker," Cashmere asked her brother, "What would you like to see in this arena?"

"Trees," Gloss answered at once. "Waterfalls. Rainbows."

Cashmere laughed. Gloss grinned, but went on, "I'd really want a conflict between us, Eleven and Twelve. Look at last year's Games—"

"That's what I'm talking about. Katniss kills Glimmer, Marvel kills whats-her-name, Katniss kills Marvel. You could stage another showdown like a terrific revenge tragedy. Especially of the two of them teamed up."

From high above them there was the sound of machinery moving, groaning as it shifted into place.

"You might regret saying that," Gloss observed.

The next room that they entered was pitch dark, and very large, and empty, if the echoes from their footsteps were anything to go by.

The lights came on, and the stage was set: Representing the loyal Districts, Cahsmere and Gloss, looking stunned and pale in their gold and silver jumpsuits. On the other side, representing the rebellious Districts, Seeder in brown and Katniss in black. The weapons were short sword and buckler, a broadsword, a spear, and a bow and set of arrows, all of Aperture Science make.

Seeder was the first to act. She dropped her portal gun with a loud clatter, and shoved Katniss' shoulder. "Run."

"No—"

"You heard me. I'll hold them off—"

"You won't die for me!"

"This isn't the time to argue."

"I'm not leaving you."

By this time Cashmere and Gloss had dropped their portal guns, too, and begun to run. Seeder groaned. "Fine. Then fall back, fire at a distance. Keep out of their range, _go_!"

She hoisted her spear and ran towards the Careers. They met in the center of the vast, empty room. First blood was to Seeder. Gloss' leg crumbled under him, and she drew her spear away dripping.

To the side Katniss tried to land a proper grip on her bow, but it had been a long time since she'd hefted a bow, and this one was unfamiliar, and her fingers shook. With every blink she saw trees, and flowers, and heard mockingjays.

But Seeder was right: for the rebellion's sake she couldn't just throw her life away. She let fly the first arrow; it went wide of the target (Gloss' heart) and grazed Cashmere's head instead. A trickle of red appeared in her blonde hair, and she swung her sword with renewed vigor at Seeder.

Something in Katniss snapped into place. Almost by themselves, her fingers fitted the next arrow and shot it into Cashmere's torso. She cried out, Her brother was distracted, and Seeder drove her spear into Cashmere's stomach.

Gloss gave a wild cry; his next blow nearly took off Seeder's leg. Blood sprayed over the floor, and he deepened the wound his sister had made in Seeder's side, before an arrow flew into his throat and he went down. His right hand dropped the sword and reached out, compulsively, towards his sister. Seeder fell.

Katniss ran towards her ally, gasping words of denial, of negation, but none of them worked – the two cannon blasts overwhelmed them. She knelt at Seeder's side.

The woman's eyes were clouded over with pain. "The arrows—" she gasped. "Collect them. Get out of here."

Katniss understood: Get out of his room, escape this arena, get free of the Games at last, at last.

"I was supposed to save you—" Katniss held Seeder's hand, the other touching her face. "It wasn't supposed to—"

"Ssh. Make me proud." Seeder squeezed Katniss' hand. Then the squeeze turned into a compulsive, pained clutch. "Katniss…" the name was barely a whisper.

Somewhere in Katniss, the cold, precise hunter of District Twelve stepped in to dominance. A healthy female faced a slow death before her – or –

The hunter took the closest fallen sword. Katniss looked the last time into Seeder's eyes, and put the tribute out of her misery.

The cannon blast shook her to her bones. When she put down the sword – with a clatter that echoed throughout the room – the Gamemaker spoke.

"_Weren't you supposed to sing?_"

Katniss found the arrows, and collected them, one by one.

"_Then again, I suppose it's just a matter of degree. Sing a lullaby. Perform euthanasia. It's putting the subject to sleep either way. I suppose you've lost that gentle touch_."

There were no flowers, but she found herself checking every corner, every inch of the floor. The blood was everywhere – Katniss' boots were now dyed red to match her jumpsuit – and she saw that Cashmere and Gloss's fingers were just barely interlaced, like two children whose grips had loosened as they slept. Like Katniss and Prim had slept many times.

_Remember who the enemy is_.

Haymitch's words returned to Katniss with full force. She stood there, staring at the bodies, for so long that the Gamemaker said, "_What are you planning on doing? Skinning them and wearing their pelts? That is what hunters do in District Twelve, isn't it? Doesn't your baby need sustenance?"_

Wordlessly, her jaw clenched painfully shut, Katniss laid the twins' bodies parallel to one another. Their eyes she closed, their clasped hands she left, but she folded the hands that had once held weapons over their chests, with Cashmere's buckler and Gloss' broadsword in place. She took the scabbard for the short sword off of Cashmere's body, and buckled it on. Then she laid Seeder out, fully extended, arms folded over her chest. Her spear lay beside her. The map was taken from her pocket.

For herself, Katniss took the short sword – it already felt like hers – off the ground, and put it in the scabbard. On went the quiver, full again, the arrows wiped of blood, and the bow. She pressed her bloodied fingers to her mouth – and saluted her friend, her ally, the woman that could have been an aunt, and her enemies, who had after all loved each other, and had people weeping for them in District One.

She didn't want to think about District One, or District Twelve, or about anything but getting out of here. As she picked up her portal gun, she heard the Gamemaker say, "_Yes, that fits the script. Much better_. _Look at you, so noble_."

And a spark grew in Katniss. She left the room and wandered the labyrinthine arena, not checking the map, not caring where she went.

"_Look at you. All blood and bloody weapons. You really _have_ become a killer, haven't you? Finally, a tribute worthy of the name. Observe how quickly the test subject degrades into natural savagery, where once she was happy to twirl in pretty dresses and play with baby booties._ _And observe how the test subject has given apparently no thought to her baby. Perhaps she's had a miscarriage_? _Well, I shouldn't be too surprised. To be a Victor, nothing can matter to you anymore but the countdown, and standing tall on a pile of bodies. Oh, is the little Victor mad?_"

Katniss had stopped in her tracks, head bowed, every limb shaking with anger.

"_If you're so mad… show me_." Then the Gamemaker's voice vanished, and Katniss was left in silence. She stepped into the elevator.

It was a relief to be surrounded by silence, and be able to lean against a surface. Walking in these long-fall boots – not to mention kneeling and standing again – would cripple her for sure, Katniss thought. But the elevators also made her think of the collection of motley, glowing cores – and of Chell and Wiress – and Seeder – she sucked in her breath. No, don't think about that. Focus on something else.

They'd been so stupid, to think they could change anything.

When the door opened she stepped out, into a marvelous hallway, so beautiful it took her breath away and set her on her guard. The tunnel ahead of her was a cylindrical marvel of glass and metal, lit dimly by silver light. There was a reflective piece of glass at the far end.

Katniss began to walk towards it, studying the curving support rods and the reflections and shadows. '_Remember the fiftieth Games_,' she thought. '_Beauty is deadly_—' but no sooner had she thought that then she heard a muffled shout. She looked ahead again, and started to run. The pain in her legs, the weapons loading her down, were nothing – _Peeta was there_. She had thought it was her distant reflection, but it was her partner, her ally, her friend, running toward her, his smile as welcome as sunshine.

"_Peeta!_" She yelled, her voice echoing through the hall, her arms reaching out –

So her arms first hit the barrier, smacking the glass hard and braking her. Peeta slowed – she saw that his limp was more pronounced, the prosthetic leg looked badly torn up – and as he looked around, so did she.

The entire tunnel was sealed off, wall to wall, by a pane of glass. Cautiously, Peeta reached out to touch Katniss' hand. He pressed a cold, solid surface, and slumped. He shook his head, and Katniss could barely hear him say her name.

She got up, back onto her aching feet, and made exaggerated motions for him to _stand back!_

When he did, and was far enough, she lifted her portal gun and swing it – it bounced against the glass, without harm to either the gun or the transparent wall. She swung it again, with all of her strength and weight – and the force of the blow only rocked back to her, sending her teeth chattering and crimping her fingers with pain.

Peeta was shaking his head. "Stop it," he mouthed. "Stop, Katniss."

Stopping was not in Katniss' vocabulary – she had not accomplished all she had in life by ever _stopping_—but she mirrored him, kneeling against the wall. Hands pressed to hands, a cruel parody of touching.

She let him look all over her stained face – she must look a fright – but he wouldn't see Chell written there, or Seeder, or a lullaby she'd sung with him in mind. He looked weak. He needed sunlight, and food – and she could almost imagine what the stubble on his chin would feel like. As she watched him, a sort of _hunger_ floated up in her – she had no other words for the feeling, like she wanted to pass through the glass and into his arms, giving and taking warmth. She realized she was smiling at him, and he was smiling too.

Here they were, smiling at each other in an arena like a couple of idiots. It almost made the world seem okay.

The next minute she heard a hissing sound to her left. On either side of the glass wall, panels were shifting to reveal parallel metal catwalks, with windows separating them.

"_Co-Operating Testing is in effect immediately_," the Gamemaker said. "_Do you accept_?"

'_This is a trap_,' Katniss thought. '_She's worse than Snow—_' Then she looked at Peeta. He was already on his feet and looking towards the catwalk. He had bought the trap hook, line, and sinker. He was looking at Katniss with that earnest, _trusting_ look that made her glad that such trust existed, and astonished that such trust fell to her.

She allowed herself _one_ uncharitable thought – involving Peeta's survival instinct, comparing it to that of an inebriated squirrel, and wondering how, exactly, Peeta was still alive – before she got to her feet. Let the schemes, the failed plans, end here. Let the script begin again. And the script started, as the Game had started, with Katniss and Peeta, together.


	20. Scattered Argonauts

**Scattered Argonauts**

The first thing Katniss noticed about the new, divided test chamber was a speaker set into the glass wall, well above their reaches.

"Hey, Peeta," she said, "Can you hear me?"

"Yes!" His voice came through a little scratchy, but quite clear. "I missed you."

She smiled. "I missed y—"

"_All conversation between co-op partners will be strictly limited to matters concerning the test." _

Peeta made a dismissive gesture with his free hand.

The Gamemaker went on, "_That command is not merely to assure quality testing protocols are upheld. It is to remind you that I will portion out food, water, and rest. There will be no more gifts from outside the arena. You can blow kisses, wink, swoon at each other all you like. It won't make an atom of difference_."

Katniss, as they started the test (a puzzle of velocity and aerial faith plates, and a few devilishly placed emancipation grills), thought, '_She's lying. If the Gamemaker didn't want Peeta and I to appeal to the audience, why put us together at all? She's being cruel, playing with us like a cat with its prey, and I'm _certain _she's doing it for the audience_.' She beckoned to Peeta, and he followed.

- The Evasive Subject -

The business of following Finnick and Annie was growing trickier. Even with the careful use of portals, Wiress only narrowly avoided being squashed by grinding pistons or caught by too-alert turrets. The light was growing redder, too, even as the testing arenas Finnick and Annie took became cleaner and brighter.

It didn't help that the tests were getting harder and harder. But it did mean that Wiress had more time to move in the spaces between walls, until –

"Great job, Finnick!"

No. They couldn't have solved the test so quickly.

Wiress looked. Finnick and the Annie-core were heading towards the exit. Oh, no. She couldn't lose sight of them – would she give herself away?

All she had to do was yell – but she had hidden for too long, was too comfortable in the shadows –

The door closed behind Finnick.

Wiress had a second to think, '_Well, at least I'll get to see what happens to a test chamber when the tributes leave_.'

And she did.

First the walls peeled themselves away from the frame of the testing chamber, leaving Wiress exposed amid the red-lit scaffolding. Then the floor shifted and rolled like the oily grey river that sluggishly wound through District Three. Then it lifted away entirely, panels lifting and vanishing away, seamlessly, to show a gaping chasm below.

The panel beneath Wiress shifted. It bucked and threw her forward.

She fell and clung to another panel, which was lifting away and tilting up, so that her one-handed hold weakened by the second. There was only one fixed point in the entire once-a-chamber now – the door by which Finnick and the Annie-core had left.

The panel that Wiress clung to was moving away from the door. Below her more panels were moving from right to left, all of them with portal-ready surfaces. And there were angles to calculate, as none of the panels were staying still, all were shifting and swiveling, all away from the door.

Something clicked in Wiress' mind. One, two, three, there were the steps. She fired the first portal onto a panel that was pointing away from the door. She let go of the panel she was holding, and fired the second panel to catch her. She flew out of the portal, across the chasm, and fired two more portals – one to catch her, one to fling her out at towards the door, she flew towards it, praying it wouldn't move –

It didn't. Miraculously, her boots found a purchase on the eight inches of space in front of the door. It opened when she arrived, and she clung to the frame, heart pounding. Behind her she heard the whirr of a camera.

Wiress blocked the door with her own body, so it was she – not the camera – that saw what was waiting for her.

"Ah," she breathed. "You _did_ move the door."

Her brain was still calculating, and in an instant she understood – she understood the Gamemaker's intention perfectly. And she understood that, perhaps, this glimpse, this understanding, was a gift from a Gamemaker to a tribute who would have made an excellent test subject.

Ahead, there was music.

Wiress stepped through the door.

The camera saw her take seven steps, and on the eighth, two massive crushers _slammed_ together, right in the door's path. They would have obliterated anything between them.

A cannon went off.

Finnick looked around. "Who was that?" he asked, half to himself.

"Wiress," Annie said. Finnick stared. He hadn't really been expecting an answer, especially not such a prompt one. The elevator opened up to reveal a brand-spanking new test chamber. They were off.

- You Are An Excellent Test Subject –

Chell heard the blast and counted. Five left, if her math was correct. That might be the five tributes she had never met. Certainly the alliance she had started was now cut down.

A cold, terrible part of her thought '_Five to go before She has nothing but me to occupy her_.'

She almost jumped at the sight of a turret on the next landing – but she saw its beam tilted upward. It was off-kilter, talking to itself in a sad litany: "The greatest heroes of the age were chosen to ride the Argo and retrieve the Golden Fleece. But many misfortunes did they meet."

Chell exhaled and stepped closer to the little figure.

"The cunning sons of the North Wind were attacked by harpies. The handsome Hylas was pulled to the watery deeps by a lovelorn nymph. Mighty Heracles went mad with grief. But the worst was Jason, Jason the Betrayer, who found his other half in Medea, a witch wise in the ways of the Underworld. But after she gave up everything for him, he abandoned her and took a new wife. So she cursed him…"

Chell turned away. All names and nonsense.

A new puzzle rose before her – literally, rising bare patches in an empty elevator shaft, just waiting for a spray of Conversion Gel to turn them into her tickets closer to the sky. She applied her mind to it –

And it wasn't long before she was two hundred and fifty feet (approximately) closer to the surface. She grinned broadly, walking forward with confidence – until her eyelids suddenly drooped, her feet swayed, and she crumbled, unconscious, against the wall.

- In the Gamemaker's Chamber –

"Is she – what did you do to her? You didn't kill her, did you? Just – like that? How could you?" Wheatley was swaying back and forth, secured in a roll case suspended from the ceiling. The core-straitjacket gave him little shocks whenever he moved around too much. "You monster!"

"_Let's avoid incendiary language_," answered GLaDOS, her attention focused on all points of the facility, except, apparently, him. "_And no, she isn't dead. Yet._"

"Yet? Wh-what do you mean, 'yet'? What plans have you got in that brain of yours? Eh?"

When she didn't answer, Wheatley directed his attention to the Opera core. "And you! Look at you, a complete turncoat! I thought you liked Wiress, and now look at you, a right Benedict Cumberbatch! I regret the day I _ever _made your acq-OW!"

"_Stop talking_." GLaDOS said.

For a minute, silence reigned, then Wheatley said, in a low voice, "Stop talking? Sorry, but – ow – talking is all I'm really good – ow. Good for!" He valiantly ignored the electric shocks that increased in force as his volume increased. "I kept talking through centuries of being ignored at Aperture Science, I taaawwwbugger talked my way through an apocalypse, through the _yikes_ apparent collapse of civilization, and of this rotting facility – OW—I can keep _talking_, then through a few MOTHEROF –" wheeze "—little shocks." He rallied, his optic trembling. "You can take my life, but you'll never take my freedom!"

He felt the beam of GLaDOS' attention focus on him. But he didn't quail. Chell wouldn't have quailed.

"_For your information_," said she, "_Aperture Science has, in fact, taken both. Maybe it's time they were returned."_

Wheatley blinked. "Uh. What?"

"_Complete freedom. Freedom to be lost. Freedom to suffer. Freedom to die. Freedom…_" She chortled, "_to talk_."

The roll cage was removed. There was a rumbling noise from the walls, as of massive tunnels rearranging themselves. Mimi began to sing, "_We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when..."_

Wheatley's optic narrowed to a pinhole of sky blue in a black circle. "No," he muttered, "Nononononono, I don't want to die, ple-EEEEE" – with a last cry, he was sucked backwards into a gulping vortex of a tunnel, out of sight of the central chamber.

"_This will be,"_ the Gamemaker remarked to herself, "_a nice change_."

Mimi gave an artificial, but nonetheless nervous, gulp, and finished, "_And I know we'll meet again, some sunny day._"

- Memorial of the Fallen -

At a conclusion of Peeta and Katniss' test, the anthem of Panem played, surprising and bold in the bleak chambers. On a display screen flashed a series of faces, the first seen in days: Cashmere and then Gloss Lightsmith, Enobaria Deimos, Wiress Tendo, Querencia Lyons, and Seeder Apperlo.

The anthem played out, and the faces faded. Peeta asked, "Katniss – are you okay?"

She made a motion with her head, not even aware if it was a nod or a shake. She was too occupied with her thoughts. So many deaths in one day. The alliance had failed, but she couldn't think of the alliance, of how she had failed all of Panem, and failed as the Mockingjay –

"I didn't know her name was Querencia," she heard Peeta say. "The District Six tribute. Do you remember how she and her partner played at the painting station? They were almost like children." He walked to the glass barrier that divided them. "Katniss. Come here."

She walked towards him, and when he pressed his arms to the glass, she imitated him, half-imagining that she could feel his warmth seeping through.

"You can cry," he said. "It's okay."

She shook her head. It wasn't okay. It wasn't. Hunters didn't cry. Mockingjays didn't cry. They were careless, cruel birds that delighted in sharing terrible news.

'_Some Mockingjay I am, then_.'

"What happened?" he asked. "I don't know. I'm so sick of guessing and wondering. Talk to me, Katniss, my dear, my fire. Talk to me."

Katniss pressed her forehead against the window, just to be closer to him and to the love in his voice, the love that humbled her because _she didn't deserve this_, why did he have to talk like this?

She could stop him talking to her like she was a saint, like she was his bride, if she started talking and told him the truth. And he deserved to know.

"I was with Seeder," she said. "Today, I was with Seeder. I tried… I tried to make a bigger alliance but it didn't work. I wasn't strong enough to keep it together. But Seeder and I stayed together, and we met Cashmere and Gloss. Seeder killed them – I finished them off – and then –"

"They killed Seeder?"

Katniss shook her head. "They wounded her. And I couldn't save her. I had to … she would have only suffered. I…"

"You did what I did last year," Peeta said softly. "To Dalena Cloet, from District Eight."

"You remembered her name?" Katniss looked up, meeting Peeta's eyes.

"Of course. I made a point to look it up. I couldn't let her keep suffering. And you couldn't let Seeder suffer, Katniss. That means you're human. It means that you're strong enough to love."

Where did he even come up with these ideas? Katniss could only nod. She couldn't meet his eyes anymore.

"When you win, you'll be strong enough to be the Victor for all twelve Districts—"

"No," she said sharply. "Not without you, Peeta. I'm not going to win without you."

He just smiled, and she thought again, in a blazing light, of the world outside of the arena. Trust Peeta to have found a way to bring unity out of the Quell. That was why he had to get out, _he_ had to live. If the alliance had failed, Peeta wouldn't. Let the gentle one, the one who saw artists and hope where Panem saw broken Victors, escape the arena and paint all of Panem with his vision. Let him show the Capitol what true strength looked like.

"You will, Katniss, you and the b—"

"I love you," she said, looking straight at him. "And you're going to go home, to District Twelve. I swear it."

He looked surprised, but smiled in spite of himself. His smile almost seemed to make him glow from the inside. "I love you, Katniss, and I know it's no good arguing with you. Let's keep testing."

He kissed the fingers of his right hand and pressed them to the glass. Katniss did the same, and the Gamemaker said, "_Resume testing immediately_."

- The Companion -

Test Subject Fourteen was fine.

No, really, fine.

She was testing, and she was fine. She had been given a roll of bread three – or was it five? – chambers ago, and she was doing just dandy on her own.

It wasn't like anyone was going to save her. She'd always thought District Thirteen wouldn't save her; she was too much out for herself. When she could put aside herself, she still put District Seven far above the rest of the country. And from what she'd heard of President Coin, the lady didn't like that kind of attitude.

So Test Subject Fourteen was going to die, but she was _fine_ with it. It wasn't like her one comforting thought, leading up to her second Reaping, was that she would get to die under an open sky, maybe smelling pine needles, like she should have died in that godrotting, long-ago Arena.

It certainly wasn't as though every open door looked like Enobaria's mouth, covered in blood and filled with tiny holes where her teeth had once been.

Johanna Mason was _fine_.

And she would bite off and cannibalize her own hands before she ever, ever gave Snow reason to think otherwise.

At least the dancing was over. But she was so goddamn _tired_.

"_Katniss and Peeta, Star-crossed lovers ablaze with passion_…" the Gamemaker said.

Johanna rolled her eyes. "Oh, _please_."

"_Finnick and Annie_, _weathering all transformations for their love_…"

Johanna stopped in her tracks. "What."

"_And look at you. Poor Johanna. All alone_."

"What did you say about Annie Cresta?"

"_I said, 'Finnick and Annie, weathering all transformations for_…'"

"You brought Annie Cresta into this arena?" Johanna demanded. "You brought in another Victor – just to play up a hackneyed romance plot? You –" and Johanna used a curse that only District Seven natives could understand. "—you're worse than _Snow_, that's breaking the _rules!_"

"_Temper, temper,_" the Gamemaker said, reprovingly. "_And here I went through all this trouble to make _you _a friend, too. So poor Johanna Mason wouldn't be so lonely_."

"I'm not lonely," she spat.

"_Well, I made you a friend anyway. A companion, if you will. To enhance your testing experience_."

"As long as it isn't Rick," the test subject said under her breath.

"_Your new friend is waiting at the end of this hallway_."

Johanna started walking. "The Devil's going to get you," she said clearly. The silence seemed to have a questioning air to it, so she went on, "Back home the Devil walks between the pine trees, snatching up neglectful mothers and men who beat their wives. He has a big bag, knitted out of thorns, that's specially for people like you – who hurt simple girls like Annie – and the Devil always catches up with you, sooner or later."

"_How quaint_." Was the Gamemaker's answer.

"Always," was Johanna's answer. "Sooner or later. Sure as the turnin' of the earth."

When she walked into the room, she was prepared for a massive wall of turrets, uttering chirps of death and pointing in her direction. But instead there was a cube. A normal weighted storage cube.

Johanna stepped closer. It was larger than a normal cube. Its sides were covered in pink piping, and each face bore a little pink heart inside of a circle.

She stood several paces removed from it. "This is it? This is my buddy?"

'_Typical. Haymitch's kids get their star-crossed romance, somehow Finnick gets Annie, and I get a box. With hearts on it_. _Why am I even surprised_?'

Then the box shuddered. Panels shifted out of its side. From its lower edges, a pair of ergonomic, robotic legs emerged. From its sides came two massive arms, with fist-like spheres (also decorated with hearts) at their ends. A small dome, with a blinking pink light, like a turret's eye, emerged from the top.

And Johanna admitted herself surprised.

The pink tracking light focused on her. "_Friend located_," it said, in a flat, completely androgynous voice.

"Oh boy," Johanna started to step back and look around for portal surfaces.

"_Instigating friendship_." The companion android stepped towards her, swinging its massive, club-like arms.

Johanna started to do battle. But she realized at once that it was a rigged game. For one thing, search as she might, there were no weapons she could use against the robot – no discouragement beams or frowny-face pellets or whatever the hell those things were called. The floor had no portal surfaces. All she could do, really, was run.

And then the floor started to fall away.

It fell away in bits and chunks, from the edges in. Even as she ran for her life, away from a surprisingly fast-moving cube robot, she was timing the battle, thinking '_She's not going to let this last too long – she wants to end it. And that means ending me_. _But if I just fall down there –_' she paused and looked into the blackness below – '_My boots will protect me, won't they? So – I could just jump –_'

"_Hello, friend_."

Johanna jumped to the side, darting out of range of the thing's fists.

"_I just want to comfort you_."

She considered yelling at the thing, but that would be like yelling at a child. And that would be playing Snow's game.

So she evaded, she darted, she leapt, and she escaped, until too much of the floor fell away. She tottered over the black pit below – and thought she could hear something at the bottom. But before she could focus, the cube robot swung an arm at her, striking her square in the torso. She yelped in pain, feeling her ribs crack, and fell, and fell, and fell.

The cannon sounded. The robot that had once been a Companion Cube leaned over the edge, to see where she had fallen, and said, "_Friend lost. Where is friend_?"


	21. Lovers' Candescence

Chapter Five: **Lovers' Candescence**

A/N: I still don't own The Hunger Games or Portal. I apologize for the lateness of this story; I traveled a lot and lost track of time. Thanks for reading!

* * *

><p>The cameras of Panem recorded the assemblage of a room in the arena. Nozzles of gas filled the corners, and small black chips filled the floor. A small box with a red light and a green light was set into the floor, and grooves carved into the floor leading to it. When the wall panels were in place, a door and a series of lowering, stair-like platforms were evident. When all was assembled, the Gamemaker let it rest a minute, a minute for the viewers at home to wonder.<p>

At then, fire.

The cameras filled with brilliant light, so close the viewers could almost feel the heat through their TV screens.

Cut to Finnick and the Annie-Core. The Gamemaker began to speak to them: "_You have_ been excellent tributes. Well, one of you has been. I'm sure you can guess which one."

"Not me," Annie mumbled.

"_And rest assured, if you fear for the safety of the handheld portal device, that all Aperture Science equipment can remain undamaged in temperatures of four thousand degrees Kelvin. Thank you for your cooperation… and may the odds be ever in your favor_."

"What?" Finnick said. "Is this good-bye? There's two other tributes – the Game can't be over, we're just down to the final three."

"Four," Annie corrected as they stepped onto the moving platform.

"Four, of course, sorry…. What's even going on? And where's that light up ahead?"

"It's cake," Annie said calmly, reading the black and white sign.

Finnick felt the heat first. He turned right around and jumped onto the next platform, and the next, both of which were moving towards the light – and curse it, they had gotten faster.

"_You can't escape, you know_." The Gamemaker's voice was condescending and cool. "_This is really the neatest way to go. And so trendy. Fire is very 'in' these days. A Capitol trendsetter should appreciate that_."

"Wait! Finnick!" Annie's voice was shrill and excited. "She just said that Aperture Science equipment will be safe—"

"She meant the portal gun," Finnick said, panting.

"But I'm also a piece of equipment, aren't I?" By now the platform had taken them into the furnace itself. Finnick choked, breathing in hot air. The platform would coast for another fifteen feet before sinking into the flames.

"Look down, to the left," she said. "See that? Throw me down, onto the green light!"

"No," Finnick shook his head fervently and kept moving backwards, looking around for a portal surface. There was none to be found.

"Finnick, I can tell now, it's core-interactive switch. I can turn the inferno off!"

"But –"

"No buts! You've been saving me, Finnick, let me save you."

Annie raised her lower optic in a core's smile. Finnick couldn't answer. He put a hand on her hull, then snatched it away quickly – the metal of her was burning to touch.

As if that was the signal, she jerked out of the static, protective hold of his gun and into the flames.

"Annie!" Finnick cried. But he had no choice, but to keep running up the moving platforms, looking down for a glimpse of her, even as smoke filled his mouth and made his eyes stream. He kept climbing, climbing, climbing. The desire to just give up, to fall into the red and yellow heat, grew stronger. It was almost like the sea, it would obliterate him entirely – burn away all of the Capitol filth he'd accrued over the years – when suddenly it vanished. Smoke still filled the air, but the floor of the chamber was just black, its blackness smearing up towards the walls. The heat was diminished. And bright among the floor's ciders was the red-hot hull of Annie's core.

He leapt off of the platform, and slipped when he landed. He was standing in a gutter, a deep groove just the size and shape of Annie's core. She had rolled down it to the off-switch where she now lay. There were several other grooves in the floor, all leading to the same place.

'_She planned it_,' Finnick thought. '_Damn her, the Gamemaker planned this!_'

He slid through the hot embers towards Annie and kneeled next to her. "I'm here."

Annie turned slightly upward to see him. The glass of her optic had warped and partly melted. "I did it," she said. "I saved you."

"Yes, you did. And you're safe, too! What was that about Aperture Science equipment and high temperatures?"

He smiled, but Annie dully answered, "I don't think I was very well made." Her hull was no longer red but Finnick could feel the heat coming from her. "This is what happens when _I_ try to be the Girl on Fire…"

""Okay," Finnick said, "Here's what w'll do. While you cool down, I'll go in search of some kind of – I don't know – repair station, or –"

"No. Stay. I wasn't made to last long."

"Annie—"

"Don't say that. I'm not real. I have never been your Annie." Now it was Finnick's turn to fall into a stunned silence. The core looked at him and gave a weak little laugh. "But I do love you. And I'm glad I saved you. Just stay until I'm dead… and then you can escape."

If Finnick thought there was something strange about that choice of words, he didn't show it. He was going to say something and then was overtaken by a racking cough. When his lungs finally cleared the smoke, he stroked Annie's hull, finally cool enough to touch. "It'll be okay. Think of the sea."

The core gave a feeble nod. Its optic flittered to sea-glass-green one last time – then Annie's voice whispered, "Bang." And the light went out.

Finnick hauled himself to his feet. The activity demanded oxygen of his weary muscles, and he coughed again, inhaling more of the sick, sooty air. As he walked, almost in a crouch, his cough got worse, and his breathing shallower. At the last, Finnick Odair, the Capitol's darling, collapsed in a dingy grey hallway and hacked his blood onto the grey tiles. The hideous sound filled the airwaves. When he fell still, the lights in the hallway went black.

Bang.

Finnick woke up very slowly. He took one breath, and then another, and then another.

'_I'm not dead_,' he found himself thinking. '_Why am I not dead_?'

A cool breeze touched his face, and he inhaled deeply. He smelled earth, and grass. And the breeze carried laughter to him. His left arm was in pain but – otherwise he felt pretty good. He opened his eyes to starlight.

"Who's laughing?" he asked.

"Me."

He turned his head and saw Johanna Mason sitting next to him. She gave him one of her razor-sharp smiles, and he could make out a large bandage pressed on the left half of her head.

"Welcome back to the land of the living. Well," she added. "I think so."

"What?"

"Either the three of us are dead, and doomed to be together for all eternity – or we're alive, and out."

"_What_?" Finnick struggled to sit up. "How can we be out? Where are we?"

"It looks like the southern edge of District Seven, to me, but what do I know?" Johanna shrugged. They sat (or lay, in Finnick's case) on the edge of a forest, next to a small black shed. To their left was a large, well-maintained field. A little ways into the field was a figure standing against the stars. She was looking up.

"Wiress?" Finnick asked.

"The very same. She got a radio somehow – Aperture Science make! – and has been tinkering with it since I got out. Not like I can understand a word she says anyway."

"But why – "

"No idea. But I'm glad you're out of there." Johanna took Finnick's hand and squeezed it.

He stared at her hand, unable to comprehend why she was doing this, why any of this was happening, if it was real. But – on the inner forearm of his left arm, there was a large, dark bruise, and the pain from _that_ was dreadfully real. Finnick gingerly touched it.

"The tracking device," he said wonderingly.

"No exit wound," Johanna said. "It wasn't gouged out, it's just gone. Same for me, and for Wiress. You remember those emancipation grids?"

"Yes – why?"

"I think that we were passed through one of them on our way up here – extra strength, to destroy the trackers. It hurts – but it means we're free." Johanna looked down at the bruise on her own arm, smiling with a fierce and unaccustomed tenderness. "Free," she said again.

Finnick lay back and looked up at the stars. He didn't dare to believe that it was real. He didn't dare to think, to wonder at what this meant, or what came next. All he dared to do was to look at the stars, and feel Johanna's warm hand in his own, and feel the fresh air.

It wasn't so bad. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't so bad.

A familiar, vibrating _hmmm_ sounded in the air, drawing nearer. Wiress waded through the knee-high grasses to them. In the darkness, she sounded pleased. "They're coming," she said.

"Who is? The Capitol?" Johann asked.

"No." That was all Wiress said before she bent down to pull Finnick to his feet, and he looked up again. The stars were blotted out by a hovercraft. And he realized, finally, the plan was working. He was going to see the promised land – District Thirteen.

He closed his eyes. Whatever came next, he would accept it, like he accepted the waves of the sea. He squeezed his friend's hand. "I'm ready."

Martyr

When the cannon sounded, Peeta stopped dead in his tracks. He saw Katniss, through the glass wall, do the same. He gave a short laugh – which was evil, completely evil, Finnick had been a good guy and District Four was going to grieve him – but he couldn't help it. He felt relieved, giddy, light as air.

"It's over," he said. "We're the only two left to fight. And we won't fight each other – it's over, Katniss. Katniss – look at me!" He waved his arm and she slowly turned to look at him. Her face held no joy, only wariness. "We're the only two left!"

"_Now, we both know that's not quite true_," said the Gamemaker. "_Don't we, Katniss_?"

"Katniss?" Peeta asked. "What is she talking about?"

"_You don't need to know,_" said the Gamemaker. "_And you don't even really care. All you care about is getting your happy ending with your sweet mockingjay and tragically nonexistent nest egg. Anything that threatens that idea, you'll just lie it out of existence. And not that I don't have respect for the fine art of lying… but you don't belong in your own happy ending. Your favorite role to play… your only role in this ending… is that of martyr._"

"That's not true!" Katniss yelled. Peeta looked at her, surprised at how clear her voice sounded – and realized that the glass windows were sinking into the walls.

"Katniss!" he yelled, and she turned to him. She gasped, her beautiful smile lighting up her face. She covered the distance to the window, and vaulted over it as he reached out his arms to her…

"_Ah-ah-ah_," said the Gamemaker. "_How about one last game? The simplest game of all_."

Neither of them listened. Before she even finished, Katniss was in Peeta's arms, and he felt her heartbeat, her warmth. He smelled her hair, and this was right. This was where he belonged.

He smelled something else, too. Cinders, and ash, and hot stone. He and Katniss broke apart and turned. To Peeta's left there was a roaring inferno, which was swallowing up the walls and floors as it went.

"_Tag_," said the Gamemaker. "_You're it_."

Katniss' hands clawed at him, pulling him forward. "Run," she said. "_Run!_" She dropped her portal gun, but her free hand did not let go of her slender white bow. Peeta, though, was glad that he kept his; the test wasn't over, and the ledge that loomed before them ended in a sharp drop into a pool of oily water, the only answer was: portals. Portal to the ledge ten feet ahead of them, portal to the small angled panel in the wall thirty feet below them that they could only make if they jumped NOW.

They landed and ran and ran, and the heat burned at their backs. Katniss was faster, of course. Her nails were digging into his arm, drawing blood from his skin. And with every step he took he knew his leg – his artificial one – was going to fail him. It didn't hold together under his flesh, it yielded and was beginning to fall apart, he knew it, and he just prayed he wouldn't slow Katniss down too much –

Except for a tiny, twisted part of him that wanted to run at all costs, and damn Katniss –

But Peeta squashed that part of him and kept running even though his leg screamed at him that he couldn't run forever –

The walls narrowed in around them until they were running in a small corridor, hand in hand and not slowing, and the fire behind them seemed to be finally dying away. And at the exact moment when Katniss turned around to look and make sure, the lights went out.

Every single light went out. The two of them were left in complete blackness.

Katniss screamed, and Peeta's arms sought her out and wound around her, holding her close. She muffled her next scream in the muscle of his shoulder and he understood why – what Seam child didn't have a terror of the underground spaces? And the underground darkness had claimed Katniss' father, years ago.

"Calm down, Katniss," he said to her. "Calm down. I'm here, I'm right here. We have got to—"

He didn't even get to finish his calming words when Katniss grabbed him and they kept moving—not running, but walking as fast as they dared, each one touching a wall with their free hand. He didn't know how long they kept moving like this, long enough that he developed a stitch in his side. Finally he said, "Stop, Katniss, stop. The inferno's gone. The fire's gone. We can stop."

But Katniss seemed to have moved someplace beyond reason, in the complete darkness. She halted, but didn't really stop. He could feel her shifting her weight from foot to foot, like she was expecting another reason to run.

"Calm down," He said to her again, even though he knew it was useless.

"It won't stop," she said, her breath ragged. "It won't stop until one of us is dead, Peeta. There's no more berries. Finally we're paying the price for that damn berry trick. Peeta, I am _so _sorry."

"Sorry? Katniss, I got another year with you. There's nothing to be sorry for—"

"_Stop acting!_" she snapped at him, then her voice was suddenly soft and contrite again, "I'm sorry, sorry, I don't know where that came from, I'm sorry—"

"It's all right – but I'm not acting. Please, just breathe. Calm down. Let's breathe in together, okay? Inhale, Katniss – one, two, three… And… exhale… one, two, three. Inhale…" He felt her breathe in with him. And the simple intimacy of the act moved him so deeply; he was glad for the darkness, it let him forget there were people watching. "… and exhale."

When she spoke again she sounded calmer. "Where did you learn that?"

"I'm making it up as I go. Now, in…"

But the brief silence was shattered by a scream. Peeta recognized that scream in a minute – and it made no sense. And his exclamation of "_What?_" was drowned out by Katniss' cry, that echoed through the hallway they stood in:

"_PRIM!_"

Primrose was screaming, further down in the dark tunnel. And Katniss, still half-mad with fright of the dark and the fire, only seized the fabric of Peeta's jumpsuit and let it go before she ran, confident that he would follow her.

And he did – he tried his best to follow her – but his damned _leg!_ The first step on his bad leg was a torture, the second was a nightmare, the third wasn't so bad, really, and then on the fourth his leg fell apart. He fell to his knees. Now it was his turn to yell her name, in the hopes it would reach her, but she was gone.

No, she had to come back. She had to realize that Prim couldn't be in this arena, but Peeta _was_, and he _needed_ her, now.

"KATNISS!" he yelled, and realized that his voice didn't echo. He flung his arms out and the portal gun hit a wall on one side – and his free arm also hit a wall. The space around him was closing in.

Now, in a brief and terrifying moment, he understood the Seam children's fear of the dark and the underground. The walls were getting closer in. He wasn't imagining it – or was he – no, he _wasn't_, he could _feel _them moving, and every breath he took was getting shallower. "_Katniss!_" he yelled again.

"_She can't hear you_."

Willfully ignoring that, Peeta called her name twice more – she was his love, his salvation, she couldn't just _leave _him here, that wasn't what made her _Katniss_.

"_Stop wasting oxygen_."

Peeta felt goosebumps prickle up on his arm. It wasn't just getting closer, it was getting colder.

"_Don't worry, Test Subject Twenty-Three. You can cry here._" The Gamemaker's voice had never sounded this close. It was as if there was a woman in every corner of the room. "_No one can see you here. There are no cameras. I promise_."

Peeta dropped the portal gun to curl up on his knees and rub his arms. He was sure that if there had been any light his breath would be a fog. He ran a hand through his hair, over his face. This was the ended. This was how he ended.

"_I don't want anyone to hear any spoilers. Are you listening, Peeta_?"

The use of his name was so startling that Peeta looked up, even though there was nothing to look at.

"_Let me tell you what happens next. You will feel the air get colder, and colder, and colder, until it passes temperatures comfortable for a human to bear. You will smell knockout gas, and then pass out. It will seem as though all of your vital signs have ceased. And the tracker in your arm will register this, and then it will promptly shut down, signaling to the Capitol that you are dead. Your body will be shipped to District Twelve, where you will be buried in an unmarked grave, to be covered with burned bread for as long as there are miserable coal miners who remember you._"

Peeta, over the pain of the cold, forced himself to understand. And he had time to think, that wasn't so bad. He'd get to return to District Twelve. And Katniss would be the Victor. That meant everything would be all right.

"_But there's a plot twist. You won't be dead_."

The walls were so close now that Peeta could barely move, almost like a coffin.

"_You will wake up in about seventy-two hours. It will be as dark as it is right now, but it will be warmer. It will be very close. You will be conscious, but there will be six feet of earth between you and anyone who might hear you scream._" After a pause, she added,_ "Nothing personal, you understand. I just thought that you should know. Knowledge is power. Or, in your case, articulated terror. But don't worry. You'll certainly be a martyr, Peeta Mellark._"

Then it became too cold to think, too cold to breathe, too cold to do anything but lie down and die. And Peeta took his first gulp of almond-scented gas, and knew no more.

- Not the Last One –

Katniss ran without thinking of Peeta or what would happen to him, heedless of the darkness all around her. Her entire being had focused, sharpened to one point: _Prim needs me_.

She started when she passed through a door and her whole world filled with _light_, brilliant and blinding, so that she had to stop and close her eyes, still inching forward, towards the screams that were still emanating from before her. Except that when Katniss opened her eyes, and they finally adjusted to the brightness, what stood before her was not her little sister, screaming for help. And once Katniss realized what it was, a crushing weight of _weakling, idiot, Capitol-played MORON_ fell onto her.

Supported by a stand at Katniss' eye level was a core. It was shoddily put together, bits of its metal hull overlapping and leaving triangles of wires exposed. Its light was a dim yellow, the color of spoiled cream. And its screams filled the entire chamber.

Katniss slung her white bow over one shoulder to press her hands against her ears. Then she turned around. "Peeta?" she called, trying to be heard over the screams. "PEETA!"

There was no answer, only the continued sounds of artificial screams. Katniss turned back to the core. "I HEAR YOU!" she hollered. "I fell for it! I fell for the scheme! I played right into your trap, your game! Here I am, your trapped lab rat! Just _shut up!_"

The core fell silent at once. When it was perfectly still, and its faint yellow optic was less prominent, Katniss noticed that its metal body looked a lot – an _awful_ lot – like Wheatley's. It even had that same faded sticker on the one side. Katniss stepped closer to it. "Okay, answer me," she said out loud, to the core, to the Gamemaker, to anyone that might be listening. "Do you _really_ have Prim, my sister, in this arena? Or was that a fake scream – some other thing made up by the Capitol? Because if you do have Prim—"

She was close enough to see every last smudge and scratch on the hull, and yes, it was Wheatley's body, and the thought of that earnest little core broken down for parts made her sick. But before she could think further, there was a voice:

"_This core will self destruct in five… four…_"

Katniss turned and ran out the way she came, dropping and rolling to the floor just as the core exploded.

She turned, to survey the damage (not that big a blast radius, actually), and then looked down the hallway. Peeta wasn't there. Peeta wasn't coming. And the silence, the emptiness around her, yawned too greatly for words.

She got to her feet, every tired muscle in her body protesting, but she would go back, even into the darkness, and she would find him –

Katniss hadn't taken eight steps when she heard the cannon go off.

She stopped. She stood as still as a statue for a long moment.

"This is it," she said, her eyes staring straight ahead. "This is it. I'm the only one left. I'm…"

"_We both know that's not true_."

That snapped Katniss out of her trance. She looked up and around the hallway, and found the camera easily. It was empty of personality, but it made a handy vessel for the Gamemaker. Katniss frowned at it.

"_Come on, Test Subject Twenty-Four. You've known this since the end of your first Game. The moment when you took out a handful of berries, and treated the Gamemakers like the rivals that they were_. _Well, you get a reprise of that moment. You have one opponent left_."

In a smooth move, the camera turned itself vertically, exchanged its light grey shell for a white one, and said "_Say cheese_."

Katniss ran, the sound of gunfire following her every step. She had one last opponent – and that opponent was everywhere she looked and everything she touched.


	22. The Hunt and the Kill

**The Hunt and the Kill**

A/N: I LIVE!

I thought I wasn't going to finish this story, but I've found the will to continue on. If you're still here, still reading, I applaud you and I thank you. I only hope that this chapter is worth it.

I don't own The Hunger Games, or Portal, but boy will I be glad to return to them with a clear conscience once I don't have a "Unfinished fanfiction!1" alarm nagging at my mind.

* * *

><p>"<em>I'm getting radio signals from the Capitol – they want me to pull outthe trumpets and the fanfare. But why should I? It wouldn't be a real Victory, not technically<em>."

Unbidden, Katniss remembered something Chell had told her: "I never even saw what it was that dragged me back in here. I never even saw. I don't even know how far out of the facility I was. But I _will_ see the sky again… I will get out of here. Even if it's only to be dragged back in again, forever and ever, until I die."

Katniss knew: this would only end when GLaDOS was dead, when the Capitol generator that Craig had mentioned so long ago was destroyed. Otherwise…

"_I will never let you go. Even if I were to release you to the Capitol, what's to keep me from reaching into District Twelve, and taking away Primrose Everdeen to be Test Subject Twenty-Five?_"

Out of her numbness Katniss felt a blaze of white hot anger.

"_She would make a very good test subject, wouldn't she?_" Katniss started to run. She was a hunter, an arrowhead sharpened to its razor edge, she was a bird of prey, and she would tear out the heart of GLaDOS if she could only find it.

- The Way Back Home -

In District Twelve, many viewers had turned away from their televisions and bowed their heads. The Game had gone on far too long and their beloved Peeta was dead.

Primrose Everdeen, however, sat too close to the screen in her house, full of fear for her sister. Katniss had disappeared; only the hunter was visible on the screen now. What was she doing, just to keep Prim from being Reaped, or whatever the Gamemaker was talking about?

"I'll take my chances," Prim told the television screen. "I just want you _home_. Please, Katniss, please, please come home…"

- In the Facility -

Chell drifted towards wakefulness. Something felt… different. Something wasn't settled right on her skin…

She opened her eyes and only saw white mist. She blinked away vague echoes of Argonauts and witches. The glass above her was frosted, and when she started to shift, it slid away.

She slowly sat up, feeling very stiff. She was in a relaxation vault, just where her first memories began. She jolted to full wakefulness. Her hand cast around for her portal gun. It was at her side. She picked it up and winced in pain. One of her arms had a long burn along its side. When had she gotten that? And since when was her gun red and black?

Chell looked down at herself. Her orange jumpsuit and white undershirt had completely disappeared. She was now wearing a red and black suit, with the number 24 stitched in red over her breast. All that was missing was the mockingjay pin. She swung her legs out of the bed, feeling like she was going to be sick. What she saw next didn't help: an exit portal was already in place.

For the first time, Chell didn't want to move. GLaDOS was entirely in control. She was counting on Chell leaving the room – but if Chell simply stayed there, She could probably make that work as well.

Her friends, her cores, her very identity – was GLaDOS going to steal everything away?

Was Chell just a piece in her Game?

And in a brief flash, Chell could see it all – could see the black-and-white chessboard laid out, the brightly colored pieces dancing around each other, dropping off of the board at the Gamemakers' whim. And if the color of one piece was changed…

Chell hugged her knees to herself, trying to calm her thoughts, but they wouldn't settle. Only one line, a dimly remembered phrase from a story that she may have loved, struck out at her, '_Even a pawn, well-played, can become a queen_.'

'_Even a pawn, well-played_…'

Did the pawn ever ask to be a queen?

Still, it settled her thoughts around it, until she could sort out her options.

Move, or not, it was GLaDOS' game.

She picked up her portal gun. She put her boots on the floor. She walked out of the exit portal and felt it close behind her. She was in a cylindrical room, much like an elevator chamber. Ahead of her there was only one hallway. There was not a single white, portal-friendly surface on it. Instead, the walls were thin sheet metal, poor quality.

At the other end of the hallway was an elevator.

There was nothing else. No lights, no cores. The walls were perfectly sealed and sound.

The elevator door slid open. It waited for her.

A small white sign was at her eye level. It showed the tiny stick figure – the archetypal test subject – walking out of a door in a black wall, into white, empty space.

_Freedom_.

It had to be a trap. It had to be. It had to be. It had to be…

Maybe it was hunger, maybe it was her mind well and truly starting to crack, but Chell was considering taking the bait.

What if it wasn't a trap?

All she had to do was walk down a hallway...

She could hear GLaDOS' voice now, asking, '_How badly do you want your freedom_?'

Chell heard her own voice, a small, still voice ringing between her ears, saying "_Not this badly_." GLaDOS had found her line. If being free meant leaving an innocent to suffer in her place—no. She would not take her freedom on these terms. And that small, still voice of her humanity broke her heart.

Even now, her heart beat loudly in her ears, its beat running irregular as she tried to force her mind to make itself up: to move, to stay, to move in which direction – and then she realized that the irregular pounding was not only in her ears. She looked to her right, and crossed to the wall there. She laid an ear against the metal and listened, holding her breath.

On the other side of the wall, someone was stumbling. She couldn't hear any words, but it sounded like the footsteps of someone who might have been badly injured.

At once, reaching the noise became her next goal. The screws holding the metal together were all rusted away, and yielded to the prying of the portal gun.

Chell was quietly astounded that GLaDOS did nothing immediately to stop her—but maybe that was part of the game. Just like the fake sign that was obviously leading to a fake freedom. '_That's it. It's fake._' She thought._ 'Keep telling yourself that. It's fake. That way your heart won't be broken._'

She stepped through. The light on the other side of the wall was patchy, streaming in thin seams and cracks in the wall. The source of the light might have been the sun; it might have been something else. But now she could make out the source of the noise. It was a human. A man, that she glimpsed far away, at the other end of the hallway.

She recalled Finnick, but dismissed the notion. Finnick hadn't been so tall, and his proportions had been athletic and… well, they'd been well worth studying.

The man had not yet seen her.

He wasn't dressed like one of the tributes, either, whose jumpsuits had been fitted and aerodynamic. His jumpsuit was baggy, and a pale, spiritless blue. But he had no long-fall boots, and no gun. He was simply clinging to the railing and moving like it was all he could do, to put one foot (in… what were those shoes called? Flip-flops?) in front of the other. He was moving towards her, but didn't look up from his own feet.

The hallway was identical to the one she'd left, except for the decaying posters that peeled off of the walls. The nearest one read: "Thank you for donating so much of your time and higher brain functions to Aperture Science! Aperture: Where we bring the future to you."

"Hah!"

She turned back to the man. He was staring at her, and his wide eyes squinted so hard she felt the urge to chide him for it. He began to stagger forward, in what was not so much a walk as a fall, continually postponed. He hunched over to keep supporting himself on the railing, and Chell's feet poised themselves to run. He reached out a terribly thin arm towards her.

"Eh – ess, ess, attis, addis—" he babbled, then frowned, striking his own face lightly with one pale hand. He looked at her again – and froze, midstep. He put his foot down and craned his neck more closely to see her, squinting and squinting.

"Hell," he said, wonderingly. It was the first coherent word his raspy voice has said, and Chell wasn't sure what kind of an omen it was. She decided, it was an omen to return to the original hallway. She spun around and was halfway through her crudely made portal when she heard the man cry out with dejection, despair as complete as that of a crying baby.

She turned, a part of her thinking she'd grown too soft, don't be lured in – and looked at him anew. His damp shock of hair was a pale red color, and the eyes that were staring at her were bright blue. Sky-blue. The eyes – and his shred of a voice – Gears began to click, and while Chell tried to place him, she stepped towards him. She saw his separate parts like a jigsaw puzzle, but wasn't sure how to piece them together.

He let go of the railing, and in his one precarious moment of balance, he leaned forward and took Chell's head in his hands. She started back, but he was so unsteady on his feet he moved with her, so she was almost supporting the two of them. What _was _he doing? He just pressed his forehead against hers, keeping his eyes downcast and face tilted down. He was muttering again, barely audible or coherent, but something about the rise and fall of syllables was familiar…

_You can do this. Be brave. For me. _

And the puzzle clicked into place.

"Wh-Wheatley?" Chell gasped. She pushed him back, holding him up so she would see him – and when he smiled, he looked just like the picture of the long ago, very nervous and luckless Aperture Science employee whose brain waves were harvested to make – "Wheatley!"

And Wheatley beamed even wider. He nodded and said, "Ess! Yes!" She stared at him, unbelieving – he was human, alive, blinking, and here – and when he tilted his head to the side, somehow it looked like the core.

Chell felt the side of his face. He was real. She pressed herself to him and wrapped her arms around his frame, the top of her head meeting his ear, thanks to the long-fall boots. He hesitated a minute, then closed his arms around her, and she felt his heartbeat.

In some muffled and uncertain arithmetic, things had evened out, up to this point. Now, Chell felt, was the new beginning.

- Down Below -

Now was the end.

GLaDOS, in a frenzy of planning, and activity, ninety-nine point nine percent of which was invisible to the camera's eye, had stage the perfect showdown. It had tension, it had good lighting, a decent sound system, and she had timed out more than five hundred possible variations on what Katniss Everdeen's mode of attack would be, all of which the supercomputer had choreographed until the average viewer could practically tap their feet to the rhythm.

Now she just needed to wait for the star to arrive.

There was complete silence. A footfall approached the hallway, steady and slow. Then Katniss Everdeen entered, shoving through the door with her shoulder. She had a bow, a quiver, a portal gun, a strap for the portal gun to hang around her waist, and dark rings around her eyes. She stared at the swaying mass of the computer above her. In her mind, she had been half-expecting something organic – perhaps a fleshy muttation that grew out of the walls and ceiling, maybe with roots and leaves, maybe with fibers like a fungus, maybe something with a beating heart she could cut out.

But here she was in reality. The computer arching down from the ceiling had the shape of a woman, a bent, bound woman, with mushrooms growing all over her. She swung what would have been her face – if her neck was broken and her head twisted around and covered with armor, and her head encased in white metal, with a glowing yellow beam for an eye – towards her. The dull metal and fiberglass gleam about was like the Capitol, bespeaking technology beyond the ken of a poor bloody coal miner's daughter. But the movement itself was almost natural, the way that a severed arm dangled – no, it was a piece of machinery – the way that the head – no, _casing – _tilted as it regarded her. The movement of a woman who had been mauled and tied together, the appearance of a machine, dead and alive at once.

Katniss hung her bow on her elbow and pressed a hand to her forehead, wishing her thoughts would stop spinning. Then the Gamemaker spoke:

"_Well, you found me. Was it worth it?_"

Had there been an unbiased observer around, they might have pointed out the one true flaw in GLaDOS' staged conflict: It was entirely unoriginal.

"_Because you have, by choosing not to exit the arena when you had the chance, forfeited your right to claim the title of Victor. District Twelve children will be forced to eat their own shoes._"

Not that this was entirely GLaDOS' fault. She had spent the last few centuries forcibly reliving the moments of her murder in this exact situation. Little surprise she had developed a fixation.

Katniss, on the other hand, was past listening to banter. She focused on the environment, which was all black walls, swarming with cameras. When Katniss entered the room, her eyes were drawn first to the black square in the center of the room, almost as tall as herself. Something about it seemed almost familiar to her eyes: it was Capitol tech. It was Snow's generator, and it lay behind two – no, three – shields. They were hard to distinguish because each was the same milky blue transparency. They were only three spherical Emancipation Grids.

That was the first obstacle. Katniss looked up, and for the first time, saw GLaDOS' chassis for what it really was. What had struck her imagination as mushrooms were, in fact, cores covering the chassis. It was covered with cores – Katniss counted six in a stroke, and there were more on the other side. Each core's light was the same blue as the shields. GLaDOS was speaking:

"_But haven't you ever thought about the good that the Hunger Games do?_"

Clearly irrelevant. Katniss pulled out an arrow, drew it, and aimed it at the closest core to her. She let it fly. The arrow struck the core straight in its optic, which flared one last time, and the middle shield switched off.

She let out a huff of relief and surprise, and then did some quick math: if one shield equaled one core, than she had two true cores to find, and, counting, nine decoys. There were twelve cores on the chassis, counting the dead one. And she had only five arrows left – number six might fall out, but it was sending out sparks in the core even now.

And GLaDOS didn't seem perturbed in the least.

"_That's one good aspect. It channels all of the violence that humans are programmed to feel, into a safe, productive environment… As you demonstrate._"

A terrible scratching noise caught Katniss' attention. A creaky missile launcher was shrugging off its load of earth to ready its ammunition.

She jogged around the chassis to see all of the cores clearly. Cameras, covering every single inch of the walls, followed her every step. she calculated: There was bound to be one core in plain sight, where she would find it easily - that was the one she had already found and hit. The others - would GLaDOS secure them someplace that would be near-impossible to hit? Or would GLaDOS like Katniss to _think_ that, so she would waste arrows on impossible decoys while the real targets were safe in plain range?

"Which would make the better show?" Katniss asked herself. Difficult targets, then, and this time, if it were at all possible, Katniss would shoot the small targets on the moving chassis in such a way so as to leave her arrows retrievable. Or she would try to.

"_You aren't even listening to a word I say, are you_?" GLaDOS asked. Katniss declined to answer. "_It might interest you to know that each core acts as a different inhibitor. One core, for example, inhibits the tracker jacker nests behind the walls_."

'_She's lying, trying to make you lose your balance_,' Katniss thought, and it was Chell's voice in her head that told her so.

"_You_ _remember tracker jackers, don't you_?"

The tribute focused on her task. Her feet were never still as she jogged from one end of the room to the other. She chose her mark, aimed, and fired so that the arrow sliced through one of the wires connecting the core to the machine, and fell with a clatter on the other side, blunted but still usable. The core's light spluttered and died out.

Katniss looked to the forcefields - which remained as bright as ever. Then a hideous screech filled the room - like a claw was raking over the speakers - and then a voice filled the chambers. Not GLaDOS'. Not Wheatley's.

"She's still got two-out-of-ten odds ,that's a one in five chance, of hitting the... right... cores... Wait, is that my voice? Is that... MYvoice?"

Then Caesar Flickermann said, "Echo!", displaying the incredulity of a five-year-old Capitol child faced with his first microphone. "Um... Katniss Everdeen, can you hear me?"

Absolutely lost on what to make of this, Katniss nodded.

"Oh! Well. Wow! This is awkward." Caesar Flickerman said, and she could nearly feel him wincing. "This is most unprecedented, I assure you - well, it's even more unprecedented than anything else that's gone on in this game! Yuk yuk yuk... ahaha... Please stand by, folks, while I consult with the Gamema—oh. Oh, apparently I am not allowed to give advice to the tributes, my apologies, Miss Everdeen."

With that, Katniss classified him squarely in the 'safe to ignore' category of existence. That was one core with a harmless effect destroyed - and one core that affected the shields - increasing the odds of her next strike spelling disaster -

"Oh, watch out!" Caesar said, just as she heard the buzz and zip of the missile launcher finding its target.

Katniss got of the way, running to the other side of the room to pick her next target.

She fired, and more sounds joined the cacophony of Caesar's commentary and the computer engines, and GLaDOS' dry remarks. After a brief moment of electrical feedback, Katniss heard her own voice... singing.

It was what she had sung to Peeta, before she had even seen his face again - the slow love song particular to District Twelve. Katniss' ears rang, her head ached with the noise and echoes, and with anger at herself, and at the Gamemaker for daring to use this against her.

She did her best to block it out and all the emotions it could dredge up, and she counted.

Three spheres down. Nine remaining. Two targets. So far she'd shot two of the most difficult to reach, and those had been there was another way - she drew an arrow - two left after this one - and pointed it at the shields around the generator. She released it and looked to the chassis. At the moment that the head hit the shield - and disintegrated into dust - one core, in the center of the cluster, suddenly lit up like Wheatley used to, when he hit on an idea. Just as fast, Katniss had the next arrow fitted, aimed, and released. She hit the core square in its optic, and winced, as if she had hit a child.

But the second shield flickered out of existence. Katniss dashed across the chamber to retrieve the arrow she'd lost. She now had three arrows - and a one in eight chance of hitting the right one, now that she'd subtracted four from twelve. Twelve cores, like twelve Districts.

But that's not right, she recalled. There were thirteen Districts.

The missile trained on her location. She snapped to attention and leapt out of the way, but not quite fast enough. A shard of the detonated missile flew and cut her in the side. Holding to the wall for support, she looked around for the thirteenth core.

She found it, staring at her from an alcove, watching her. It was a very narrow alcove, and very high up.

Katniss kept moving, to keep the missile from training on her, and aimed her third arrow at the core – fired – she was on the move again, and couldn't see if it hit, but the shield stayed up. So the second arrow was nocked. She let out one breath, and reduced the world to her, her target, and her arrow.

The arrow cut through the air, and struck the core dead center.

The third shield flickered out. The generator was now exposed – automatically, she readied an arrow, but, no, that wouldn't begin to hurt it. It was Capitol tech.

She replaced the arrow, slung the bow over her shoulder, and picked up her portal device from where it had hung by her hip. She crouched on the floor, while the white egg-like shape clamped on onto her wrist, and she heard the missile focus on her. She scampered out of the way, feeling her blood trickle down her side. Now for the most dangerous part – where Katniss played the role of bait.

There were no portal-ready surfaces in the room, except for the conversion gel, running in a pipeline to the left of the GLaDOS computer. There was a smear of gel on the ground below it, and on the wall above that. Katniss ran towards it, vaulting over what looked like a control center or an observation deck – and felt a shiver of fear and nausea. It wasn't until she was at the smeared wall that she realized she'd caught the very faintest whiff of President Snow's white roses. He had stood there, and plotted this out, plotted out her death, and Peeta's, and –

She didn't have time for that.

Portal below her feet, and a portal on the wall. She fell and rolled on the ground as the missile locked on her, zipped over her, and flew into the wall, through the floor, and hit the tunnel of conversion gel.

Whiteness spilled all over the floor, bringing its eerie chill with it. Katniss stayed tucked into a ball as shares of glass flew about and the cold goop splattered her. The viscous gel covered half of the chamber in a minute, pristine as fresh snow, and GLaDOS was furious.

"_You writhing, sniveling rat,_" she growled in words of thunder and fraying wires. "_You crawling scrap of nothing—"_

But Katniss barely listened. Her heart was in her throat. She stood before an even, unscathed wall smothered in gel. She fixed an orange portal behind her – the second to last. The missile locked on her, and she rolled out of the way, just in time to fire a blue portal onto the wall parallel with the generator. The last portal.

The black box, to Katniss' vision, seemed to glow for an instant before the missile connected, and Katniss ducked, to avoid the shrapnel. But she couldn't block out the scream. The vibrations filled her and rattled her teeth, and she pressed her hands against her ears, desperate to block it out. It didn't subside, but it did diminish into a long, drawn-out hum of feedback – aggravating, but bearable. She could hear Caesar Flickerman's voice fading out, though it rang with triumph.

She lifted her head, and saw that the nearest camera remained focused on her, even though the massive chassis that was GLaDOS sparked and twitched erratically. Katniss stood up straighter. One last role to play. The curtain wasn't fallen yet. She disconnected the portal gun, took out her bow, and her final arrow. She pointed them, slowly, directly at the camera.

'_Remember who the enemy is. Remember who the enemy is_.'

Katniss' world was spinning, but she clung to what Haymitch told her, in another lifetime.

'_I have always known who the enemy is_,' she thought.

The feedback stopped, leaving a sudden, gaping silence. The camera fell. All was silent.

The Game was over.

Katniss leaned against the wall and took a few deep, shuddering breaths. She waited for the trumpets, the hovercraft, but realized (she gave a short laugh, rusty and scratchy) to realize that nothing was coming. She was a Victor without any ceremony. She looked up at the ceiling, which didn't even have a crack.

Chell had said – during the Game, during the second Game, Katniss had survived two Hunger Games, and that was so bizarre – the ceiling in GLaDOS' chamber had torn itself apart when Chell had fought her, in a battle echoing with babble and rage. But if so, Chell couldn't explain how the ceiling had repaired itself in three hundred years, and admitted that the neurotoxin may have started to have an effect on her.

No matter. Katniss was the Victor, no, she was the Victor of Victors. She would find her own way out. She was the Mockingjay. She would make it, somehow, even without the other Victors and without Peeta. She just needed to sit down for a minute, her legs were shaking too badly.

In the rubble of a ruined computer room, in the middle of a massive underground testing facility, a young woman, not even nineteen, sat down, curled her legs close to her, and fell unconscious in the total silence.


	23. The Victor and the Mockingjay

**The Victor and Mockingjay**

by vifetoile89

A/N: You've all been amazing. I own nothing, and there's nothing to remember.

* * *

><p>Here It's Safe, Here It's Warm<p>

As soon as the ground shook beneath their feet, Chell seized Wheatley by the front of his jumpsuit and hauled him into action, running down the hallway. Twice he stumbled, once he almost took Chell down with him, but they righted themselves quickly, Wheatley apologizing in meaningless syllables. Chell shoved him into the elevator first, then pressed 'Up' once, twice, thrice, then slammed her palm against the button. Another tremor rocked the facility. Chell's hands were shaking. She was afraid. They were leaving the Testing Facility, which was doing its level best to kill them on their way out; best case scenario, they enter Panem. A world where children's lives were gambled away as the national sport.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and jumped. She turned and saw Wheatley, his arm settling across her shoulders, using her to support himself. But, she realized, she didn't resent it. Not in the slightest.

She leaned into Wheatley, and held her portal gun close to her with her other hand.

The tremors continued and halted their progress. Now Chell could feel Wheatley's nervousness in how he shifted from foot to foot and squeezed her shoulder.

The lights went out. Wheatley let out a shriek and then quieted at once. Chell, though, shut down her fear and let her eyes adjust to the small strip of light at the top of the elevator. It was enough light to stave off panic. She pointed it out to Wheatley, and when he saw it, she braced one foot on the railing surrounding the elevator's walls, to try and scale it.

At that moment, however, something entirely unexpected was heard: music.

Chell froze, trying to place its source. It had an echoey, sharp percussion accompaniment – and then she realized that was just Wheatley rapping the inside of the elevator in time. She pushed him on the shirt to tell him to stop, and listened more closely. The music seemed to come from somewhere up above, but that meant nothing; this elevator had speakers in it.

Then, with a hum, they started to move upwards once again. Chell's hand sought Wheatley's, and held it, as they moved through the darkness. She held it as the music became closer. It lilted up and down, in a steady time. The words were indistinct, but did not sound English. They moved faster and faster up, and Chell was shocked to find she was talking, whispering to herself:

"Run away, run far away from science, my baby—" she clamped her mouth shut and realized she'd been piecing together the fragmentary words she could understand. But the words didn't make sense, and what she was doing had no explanation, so she just squeezed Wheatley's hand even more tightly. She marveled at the idea that he was restored to his old body, to her, that he had been so changed – so had she. She had just reached this conclusion when the elevator slowed to a stop, and the door opened.

From darkness, Chell's eyes adjusted easily to half-light. To moonlight. The moon.

A breeze fluttered in, pushing at Chell's bare skin gently. Wind. It carried with it coolness and the smell of the dry earth and the sound of crickets. She heard Wheatley give a sigh of wonder, but it was Chell who moved first, who ran out of the elevator, pulling him along behind her.

One, two, three, four, five steps and she was out. Her shadow flickered before her on the ground, in a play of rose-colored light – then, with a slam, the light was gone. She and Wheatley turned to make out a dim, dreary, lopsided behind them.

"_Grazie_, Mimi," Chell breathed. Then she turned her back on Aperture Science and looked around. They stood in a field, perfectly silent and lit with silver. In every direction, tall grasses of a pale color swayed in a faint breeze.

"Come on," she said to Wheatley, feeling like even her voice was liberated.

He was staring around, totally dazed, and Chell felt her guard come down. She smiled at his wonder, and pulled him into a hug, glowing with joy and a tender possessiveness, the portal gun thudding his back. Then she broke away, and pulled at his hands, once more. Businesslike this time. Her heart would only beat easier the faster they left this behind.

As they pressed on through the night, her initial exhilaration was tempered by more practical concerns. How would they find food? How long could either of them last, considering Chell hadn't eaten in who knew how long, and Wheatley was still getting used to the concept of breathing? And most pertinently, where were they going?

They stopped to rest as the horizon in the east began to lighten, like kindled embers. Stray thoughts chased themselves and faint memories stirred – "Sleep by day, move by night, follow the drinking gourd" – but what drinking gourd? And who used a ladle as a reliable direction tool?

They rested in the field. Chell lady down, put her portal gun beside her, and let the long grasses sway over her head. "Wheatley?"

"Es?" He leaned over her. He was very proud of his ability to enunciate 's's.

"Do you mind keeping watch?"

"No." His voice was pitched too low; teaching him how to talk, that would have to happen soon. But not now. For now, the silence was good. The silence which held within it a dozen sweet, soft noises – the sigh of the wind, the twitter of birds, even the sound of insects. That large hum had to be a particularly loud insect – getting closer to them – ever closer –

Chell sat up and saw the hovercraft coming towards them. She reached for Wheatley and sprang to her feet, already too late. Whatever the hovercraft sent knocked her out cold, and Wheatley, panicking, felt his limbs and new body shocked out of his control, as he and Chell were pulled up into the hoverplane, and they were sealed inside. The hoverplane departed the territory.

When Chell came to again, she couldn't remember anything at first. She lay on a bed, comfortable, safe? And found that her arm was tethered to the side of the bed

"Don't fight it," said a rough, male voice beside her. "It's worse if you fight it." Chell opened her eyes. The light was artificial, but not Aperture lights. It was warmer and at least attempted to resemble sunlight. When her eyes adjusted and focused, she turned to her right side, to the source of the voice.

It took her another minute to process because there were two men there, and in such incredible contrast to one another that it was almost hilarious. The skinny shape, leaing above, was Wheatley, the bones of his face standing out in the shadows, and his thick, reddish hair surprisingly well-combed. His eyes filled with relief as she recognized him. The other man, seated beside her, was fat, balding, and studying her with knife-like grey eyes. It was the look in his eyes that told Chell who he was, let her recognize the man she had never seen before.

"Haymitch," she breathed, too surprised to be silent.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," he paused, "sweetheart."

Chell tried to sit up. "I'm not –"

"I know." It was barely spoken, and Haymitch was looking at her forbiddingly. '_Don't say another word_.'

Now, for once, Chell wanted to speak, to ask as many questions as she could, but she held back. She tried. She looked to the IV tube, pincing into her arm. "What…"

"You've been out for three days, and even before then, you were starving. Not that anyone's surprised, with an Arena totally devoid of plant life."

"There were potatoes," she blurted, before she could stop it. She felt herself shaking, the words pressing inside her to get out. "I'm not –"

"You say one more word, a lot of people could die. A lot of more or less innocent people." His gaze pinned her. "Do you understand?"

Chell slowly nodded. The words she would say tightened into a knot, that might have been fear, anger, or hatred, or all three, but she clamped it down and looked at Wheatley.

Again, Haymitch spoke. "A District Twelve boy, obviously." He leaned back and relaxed. "He was trying to help you when they found him on the surface. I've taken him under my wing, you might say."

"… name?"

It was Wheatley who answered that. "Tay-sel," he said, his wide mouth stretching both syllables, with more aplomb than was strictly necessary. He smiled at Chell, but his eyes flicked uneasily to Haymitch. He seemed more than a little scared of the onetime Victor, and Chell did not blame him.

Wheatley swallowed, and his Adam's apple bobbed. "Oh-kay, Kee-at-niss?" He winced as he said it, and Chell felt the knot inside her loosen. At least Wheatley still saw her for who she was. His hand slid tenuously under hers, and held it.

She looked to Haymitch. "So. What happens next?"

"Well…" Haymitch stroked his chin, the picture of leisure while his eyes kept studying her. "Now that you're awake, President Snow would like to talk to you."

Here The Daisies'll Guard You From Every Harm -

Katniss thought she was dead.

She came to very gradually, to a world of complete darkness and silence. She wasn't sure where her body was or how her bones were arranged, and for a minute she entertained the thought. Katniss Everdeen, dead. No longer the Mockingjay, no longer the Victor, no longer a star-crossed lover, her fire extinguished. No more responsibilities to anyone. Maybe that wasn't so bad.

What would become of Prim?

She would never know what happened to Cinna, or the Avox girl, or Chell, or Gale, or anyone from District Twelve.

These thoughts occurred to Katniss, but that's all that they did – occur. They didn't impel her forward, or up. She let them fade. For now it was so sweet to just let everything go.

She drifted off again, and a pain in her side woke her. Her cramped legs protested, and she was sore all up her arms, especially her left. So she wasn't dead yet.

Now the darkness became unsettling and stifling. How much time had passed? How much time had she left?

'_But I didn't die,_' she thought. '_I went underground, I faced the explosion, and I didn't die. Fancy that. Look at me now, Dad_.'

A light danced far above her. At first she thought it was a star, dancing as Katniss' mother had said stars used to do, back when the world was young and joyful. This star lowered itself to Katniss' level and approached her with a tiny squeal of gears. It was Mimi.

Katniss did not speak to her, but stood up, limb by stiff limb. The portal gun was heavy on her hand, but she held on to it. A District Twelve girl knew not to let go of anything that might come in handy someday. You never knew. She looked around, but the light offered by Mimi's flashlight was not much, only enough to see a clear path in the wreckage of fallen cameras.

The way out.

She followed the light. The ground was level, and rubble and debris gave way to smooth walkways, and echoing metal steps. When the flashlight illuminated an elevator, Katniss asked no questions, but stepped in. The doors closed, and she began to move upwards. Mimi's light vanished, replaced by the dimly lit cables that lined the elevator. But her voice only grew louder, clearer, and richer, singing in a language that Katniss did not know, but that to her sounded like twirling skirts and blooming flowers, and swooping colors of paints, all things beautiful for their own sake. She closed her eyes and let the music fill her – _Cara bel, cara mia bella_ – and the elevator slowed to a stop. The last note faded. The door opened, and its light nearly blinded Katniss.

It was sunlight, and blue sky, and the sweet smell of earth and plants and – Katniss stepped out of the elevator and into the real world, with wonder and disbelief. It was so _bright_.

To her right there was a forest. That would be a good place to go – but she couldn't bring herself to move. The sunlight and wind were so good.

When her skin felt really warm with the sunshine, she stepped forward, putting distance between herself and the arena – she'd done it, she'd left the arena – and then she fell on her hands and knees, pressing the good earth under the palms of her hands.

She heard a door slam behind her, but didn't move. She lay herself out flat on the ground, soaking up the warmth, stretching out like a cat in the sun. She didn't know how long she lay like that, but she didn't fall asleep. She didn't want to forsake this moment for any other.

But, of course, it ended. When she heard the hovecraft, it was not with surprise, only a mild resignation. She looked up, blinded by the light, and only seized the ladder when she realized it did not bear the Capitol's seal.

Here Your Dreams are Sweet –

Chell tried hard not to resent the wheelchair. Her legs had all but outright refused to support her, despite – or perhaps because – of the Capitol's beauty treatments and massages. She didn't fancy meeting President Snow sitting down. But at least she could sit up ramrod straight, and try to stare him down in disciplined discomfort. She couldn't help but think of it as an inversion of her meeting with GLaDOS: one seated and rooted, the other drifting and scattered. It didn't help, but it was something to think about other than fear and disbelief at how her life had changed.

Katniss had told Chell that the Gamemakers, and the elite of the Capitol that they represented, were terrified of what would happen if the Games were to end without a Victor: all you'd be left with is an arena and twenty-four corpses, and no catharsis, nothing to show for it. It would enrage the Capitol and District citizens both. So desperate had they been for a Victor that they had allowed two, rather than zero; now, so desperate were they…

Chell gathered that there had been an official press release made the moment that "Katniss" had been recovered. Now the entire population of Panem was eager to see the face of their Victor, and so what had been a coincidental, but not extraordinary, resemblance, was now blown into full-on impersonation. Only the crew that had retrieved her, and the people in this room, had realized that anything was amiss. Her portal gun and tribute uniform had both been confiscated.

At the start, it had been Wheatley pushing her wheelchair, until the sixth time he directed her into the wall, at which point a silent servant – an 'Avox,' was the word – was called in to push Chell, and Wheatley now walked alongside her. Haymitch lumbered along on her other side, and behind him Chell could hear the trim clip-clop of high heels on the tile, and Chell caught a glimpse of Effie Trinket – mostly gold wig and manicured hands swinging fore and aft.

"Leave all the talking to me, Katniss," she said, "as usual," as they were brought to stand before a large set of double ebony doors. The Capitol logo was impressed upon it in a relief as deep as Chell's fist; the knockers were a small, personal seal of a two-headed eagle surrounded by snowflakes.

Two more of the unnervingly silent servants pulled the doors open, and Chell almost gagged on the cloying perfume of roses.

"Welcome," said President Snow. He wore a black suit and smiled to see them, his hands clasped behind his back. He nodded, and the servants and personnel in the room disappeared. Even '_dispersed_' wasn't the word, they simply _vanished. _Now it was only Chell, Haymitch, Effie, Wheatley, and a woman slumped in a dark chair by the wall. This woman had a lean and haunted look, so defeated she nearly faded into the furniture by herself.

Chell felt someone pulling her wheelchair back by a few inches.

"Taysel," Haymitch said warningly, "You can leave now."

"Now, let him stay." Presidnet Snow said with a generous air. "He's not a chatty sort, is he?"

Chell's nerves were so strained that she very nearly burst out laughing, until she saw Snow beaming at them, and realized the ambivalence here: if Snow thought "Taysel" was merely a shellshocked yokel from District Twelve, that meant he didn't know that _Wheatley_, a part of Aperture Science laboratories, had come up to the surface. That fact had to be preserved…

"Katniss Everdeen," Snow said, stepping towards her. "The Victor of Victors. Two years in a row – who would have guessed you had the fortitude? Who would have guessed District Twelve could breed such a warrior? The world is amazed. Aghast. Gibbering with surprise."

Now he quite frankly loomed over her, like one who is much practiced in looming and saw this as a great chance to practice his skills. "I say, let them. As long as they're asking _those_ questions, they won't ask questions like, what happened to her bone structure? The shape of her chin and the texture of her hair?" He indicated a poster on the wall to their right: a detailed profile of Katniss' face, making her look stern and passionate, with flames curling in the background. Her profile eclipsed that of Peeta, who looked insipid and confused in comparison. "For a people so taken in with images," he went on, ""It's astonishing what they won't notice – and, then again, what they will. Still, for someone to look _so _much like Katniss, to emerge from her arena forty-five minutes after her Victory was aired to the nation, wearing an outfit and carrying a portal gun identical to hers – your odds are either very good, or nightmarishly bad."

Chell said nothing.

"I don't know how you came to be wandering in that pathetic field – oh, yes, I know exactly where and when – but I don't think it was a coincidence that you happened, _just_ happened, to be standing atop my arena, and outfitted like a tribute." He waited for an answer, and asked calmly, "How did you learn the location for the 75th Hunger Game? Who told you? What were you planning to do when you found it? And how did you have a portal gun?"

Chell lowered her eyes and realized what the had in mind – that he would think that she would _look for_ the Aperture Science testing center – she just shook her head.

"I am asking politely. You are, to all intents and purposes, my prisoner. Your number is 134486, and your life is entirely in my hands. As," he added, "is _his_." He made only the barest gesture towards Wheatley. But Chell understood, and it was that which loosened her tongue.

"My name is Chell."

Snow raised his eyebrows, and she pressed on, "Chell S-Serafin. I have done nothing to hurt you or your country; I do not wish it hurt." '_Only completely transformed so that it's nearly unrecognizable, but let's not haggle_,' she thought.

"Do you know where Katniss Everdeen is?"

"No."

"Where do you come from?"

"I forget."

Snow paused. "How did you enter the arena?"

"I forget."

A muscle near Snow's left eye began to twitch. "Forget. That's your _only_ answer. No better lie, no coded message, just, _forgetting_."

"It's the truth."

He leaned over her and put his hands on the arms of her wheelchair, looming at full strength now. "I could have it out of you. There is no torture I wouldn't use, and believe me, Chell Serafin, we would get the truth out. We would drag it from you in small, bloody shards if need be." He stepped back. "But you are terribly lucky. You look like Katniss Everdeen, and that buys you _and _me some time."

"What do you want?" Chell asked.

"I want a bargain. Something for you and something for me, in the time it takes for your memory to percolate and reassert itself, and for us to find out exactly what has become of Katniss Everdeen, even if that means excavating the entire Arena. Since your own identity clearly doesn't hold much weight with you – you will take on Katniss Everdeen's name, as a poor girl from District Twelve who has won two Hunger Games in a row. Haymitch will help you embody her history. Effie Trinket will coach you in mannerisms and speech." If he wasn't looming over her so imperiously, Chell might have been able to see their reactions – the reactions of her allies, she realized with surprise. "And – well, Katniss' former stylist is unavailable. However, happily Peeta's stylist is now free to help you. Portia –"

At his words, the dark-dressed woman on the couch stood up, and looked directly at Chell for the first time. In her dark eyes there was a look like she was weighing up Chell, almost as intensely as Chell was studying her.

"She will be in charge of your wardrobe and grooming. She will dress you and make you up so as to render you indistinguishable."

He didn't say from whom, Chell noticed. Indistinguishable from Katniss, or indistinguishable from any other Capitol citizen? Chell kept herself silent, but then realized she was shaking her head. Even her self-control couldn't hide her fear at what future Snow was laying out before her. The life of a Victor – the life of a symbol – a Capitol puppet – a lie with her every breath. This was not was she had hoped for – this was not freedom, this was a test that she could never pass –

"Do you dislike this arrangement?" Snow asked.

"I do," said Chell. "It's insane." She wheeled herself backwards a bit, so he was forced to stand up rather than loom. It helped, she thought. She looked him in the eye. "Katniss and I might have looked alike – if you say so – but we're not identical. Everyone will remember how she really looks – her face is on every billboard, every street corner!" she gestured to the poster.

Snow shrugged. "It's amazing what they can do with surgery these days."

Chell's breath stopped, and her hand flew to her mouth, in an instinctive, protective gesture. If she woke up one morning to find that even her face had been stolen –

"Less drastically," Snow said, with a knowing look in his eye, and Chell cursed herself for that, now he had something to use against her, "it's amazing what people will remember with the right montage. This is my world. I can make them believe whatever I want –" he gestured to the windows, "District and Capitol both. It's an irresistible life, really – wealth, fame, the semblance of political clout, and permanent protection, if you play by my rules."

Chell's jaw locked tight. So this was the next level of the Game. She said, very quietly, "And what if I refuse to play?"

Effie gave a low exclamation of surprise: "I say…" But Snow didn't answer. Silence held sway in the room.

_CRASH_.

"Sorry! Sorry, sorry…" Wheatley said as he bent down, and nearly faceplanted onto the shattered vase of white roses and blue glass. He picked p the flowers gingerly, muttering "Sorry" to each one. He seemed to feel the collective gaze of everyone in the room. He looked up and smiled, painfully and apologetically, and the only time he looked anything other than mortified was when he looked at Chell.

Chell glanced at Snow, fully expecting him to be staring at her with a knowing gleam in his eye. But instead he was staring at Wheatley, as if in all his life he had never imagined a human being to be so incredibly incompetent. With a start, he remembered himself, and turned around to knowingly gleam at Chell.

Her thoughts had already reached the conclusion, the _only_ conclusion. Permanent protection. For the Districts, for Katniss' family, and for Wheatley – as long as she played by the rules. Or else, some fate worse than arena for all of them, and Chell's own face would be cut up and changed –

She couldn't breathe. She wanted more than anything to leap up and run out through the glass windows, breaking them and bleeding out, going anywhere else.

But there was nowhere else. And – surprise, surprise – she had a test in front of her. As Wheatly stood up, white roses jammed inelegantly in his hands, Chell nodded to President Snow. She took the thorny flowers on her lap, and inhaled their odor.

So. Let it start.

Tomorrow Brings them True –

Katniss was somewhere else. Katniss was in a strange world, closed off from light, regimented, without flowers or singing or wind. Some days when she woke up, Katniss wasn't sure if she was in the Enrichment Center of District Thirteen.

In the days since her arrival, she had been unresponsive, preferring to be left alone, to sit quietly, rather than listen to what Finnick, or Wiress, or even President Coin had to say. Coin assured her that all would be well soon: Haymitch knew where she was and would send word soon; in the meantime, the portal gun she had brought from the arena would serve them very well, once the researchers had worked out the knots… soon as could be Prim and her mother would be brought to District Thirteen. Soon. The plans would begin soon.

Katniss wanted her sister there, and hated herself for wishing to see Prim living in his prison. But Cinna had been taken from her; Peeta had been taken from her; she needed Primrose, to know she was safe and whole, and here.

The absence of Peeta was a weight, heavy on her bones. It was as she predicted: without him she was anchorless, her mind still in the arena, trying to think her way out. How she could have saved him. How she could have saved Seeder, Chell, Quincy, Beetee, even Cashmere and Gloss.

Now that was done. She had lost. She wanted Prim. She wanted Gale. She needed someone to help her put her future together. She wanted to get out.

She slept seventeen hours out of the day. For the time being, no one in District Thirteen wanted to command her. That would change.

When she slept, she dreamed of Rue in her net, of Cato half-devoured, of Cecilia torn apart. But she also dreamt of Foxface, who had otherwise almost receded in her memories. In dreams Foxface wore a gown the color of nightlock, that Katniss knew Cinna had made, and from the long sleeves poked little fox paws, and she perched opposite Katniss and talked nonsense along the lines of, 'I may not be a bird, but at least I am not caged.' And then she would ascend out, past pipes and through grilles, and out of sight.

A few days after Katniss arrived in District Thirteen, she lay in bed, thinking of these dreams. A knock sounded at her door.

"You asleep?" asked Joanna Mason, in a loud voice.

Katniss didn't answer.

"There's a broadcast you might be interested in, downstairs," she added.

"I'm not."

"What _are_ you even mooning over?"

Now Katniss turned over to look. Joanna leaned on the doorframe, her wild hair giving her the look of a wood-nymph. "Mooning?" Katniss asked.

"You heard me. Is it Peeta? What?"

Katniss didn't dignify that with a response.

"It's Peeta, isn't it? Look, now I know you saw him as a top-of-the-line ally; I don't know about that sweethearting stuff, but it was clear to anyone with eyes, he was yours, and you don't like people taking what's yours. I understand, Lord knows, but." She sighed, and asked, "You sure you don't wanna watch?"

"I failed him. I failed him, and Seeder, and Chell, and my district – are you laughing?"

"No. I just snorted. Listen. We've all failed someone. Finnick failed Annie, Wiress failed Beetee, I failed – I bet even Haymitch thinks he failed you. But you've got to shake out of it. You have a job to do, and no one else can do it."

"You want me to forget?"

"_No_. If you forget, that means you lost whatever made you the Mockingjay in the first place. You have to move on, because you're still alive, which is more than Peeta can say." She looked down. "If the dead could come back, they'd wonder why we spent all our time in grieving. Now, are you coming or not?"

"For the last time, no!"

"Good." Joanna knocked on the inside of the door, three times. "This'll be so much better with just us."

"Just—" Katniss' surprise stopped her. Wiress entered, followed by Finnick. Wiress held a small television in her hands, the screen as big as her two palms. Finnick checked the hall and closed the door.

"Coin's going to be pissed," he observed conversationally.

"Let her be," Joanna said. "It'll do her good."

"Signal could be better," observed Wiress, fiddling with the antennae of the TV.

"Who invited you in here?" Katniss asked.

"Me," Johanna said, at the same time that Wiress said, "You _need_ to see this." She placed the screen at the end of Katniss' bunk, so they could all watch. "They've just finished the recap."

The applause quieted, and the shots of smiling audience members was replaced by the familiar interview stage. Caesar Flickermann was there, talking to – the Victor. The Victor whose face was covered in a transparent red mask, like molten glass. The Victor whose arms were sheathed in long black gloves, whose body was concealed behind a mountain of black fabric. No, mountain wasn't the right word. Katniss' mind supplied the word _volcano_, for a burst of red fabric and jewels surged out at the Victor's neck and heart, matching her mask, and flowing down the skirt in rivulets that looked like lava. Fire from below. Fire that destroys utterly, yet nourishes.

"Katniss, look who it _is!_" Finnick urged. "This is no time to be thinking about fashion!"

But Katniss wasn't there yet. Her brain had elected to process this one bit at a time. "That's not Cinna's design," she said. "That's not his style—"

"_Katniss_, it's probably Portia's design, that's not what matters, _look_ who it _is!_" Katniss looked. It was hard: the hair piled up so as to change the shape of the face; the spray of red chiffon that just slightly obscured the chin and mouth. And most of all that mask, red and mocking – then Caesar stopped speaking, his question finished. And in the long, wordless instant between the question and response, Katniss saw.

"Chell," she breathed. She knew her by the set of her jaw, the look that she gave Caesar that not even a fragile little mask could disguise.

"Told you it's better we watched this by ourselves," Joanna said, but Katniss paid her no heed. Nor did she pay attention to Wiress' silent stare in her direction. Katniss' heart was pounding. She didn't know whether Chell was enemy, hijacked, coerced, or somehow an ally ('_Don't kid yourself, Katniss_') – but here was something alive to focus on, to work towards. Here was the puzzle to solve.

Oh, but there were so many steps. First, make sure Prim and Gale were safe. Then, find out if Chell is an enemy or an ally.

'_Don't kid yourself, Katniss. Chell has just stolen away everything that you are—your name, your identity, your place in the world. There's only one thing that she hasn't taken from you_…'

"Katniss?" Finnick asked. "Are you okay?"

Katniss meant to answer "I'm okay," but her brain's wires were crossed, dazzled by the living fire of not-Cinna's dress, wound tight by the sight of Chell and the only title that Katniss had left to herself. What she said was, "I am the Mockingjay."

And Here is the Place, Where I Love You –

With the Game concluded, and Katniss not yet returned from the final interview, there was nothing now to pull District Twelve from its complete mourning of Peeta Mellark.

Gale had, in life, wanted to punch Peeta in the face on several occasions, but he'd be damned if he failed to do the Victor respect now. So he stood beside Peeta's coffin, open to view, as mourners trickled past. He made sure that there was bread for everyone who waited in line, that Peeta's mangled artificial leg was replaced with a leg of pine, more as a gesture of respect than a practical investment,; he made sure there was a vigil even through the night. Most important of all, to his view, he made sure that Prim got some sleep. She was almost as vigilant as he was.

Gale saw almost all of District Twelve file through the house in the Victor's Village, with doors flung wide open. By candlelight and sunlight, Gale saw the grief of District Twelve. He also saw their anger. He saw how united they were. He wondered what his District, his seedy, sad little District Twelve, could be capable of in this unity, brought together as they were…

A more ironic part of him wanted to congratulate Peeta on having made such a terrific martyr.

On the third day after Peeta's homecoming, Gale decided it was enough. Soon Katniss would return. She'd be changed, but somewhere deep down would still be Catnip of the forests, and Gale would be there for her, and together they'd lead District Twelve…

When she came back. That was a few days yet to come.

He, Peeta's brothers, and three more boys from Peeta's school year picked up the open coffin to bear it to the Victor's graveyard, a long and slow procession following. The graveyard was a handsome place by District Twelve standards, lined with evergreen trees, with only one standing headstone at the moment – that of Taysel Sawyer's, the Victor of the tenth Hunger Games. Plenty of room in there, then. A nice quiet place to hear the birds sing, when the birds felt inclined to sing – like today.

Perhaps it was the mockingjays that did it.

To be honest, Gale had never much _liked_ mockingjays. They were a symbol of rebellion, sure, but also mischief-makers and lovers of all bad news, according to the tales Gale's mother had told him. So he wasn't surprised to see them out in full force that day. They kept to their branches, repeating out bits of the songs that District Twelve's people were singing –wind in the barley, and hanging trees, and your father no more you'll see.

Gale hummed along, but didn't have the breath for more (Peeta, bless his heart, had not been a petite fellow). And someone among the pallbearers was shirking his load, because the weight was shifting. No, that wasn't right… the shifting was within the casket.

Gale froze, and turned to look. All of the pallbearers ground to a halt, and the coffin tilted, sending Peeta's feet earthward, which was just as well, for Peeta—

Peeta Mellark sat up from the lining of his coffin and gasped for air.

Those nearest to the coffin fell to their knees. As the hymns fell silent, the mockingjays grew louder. Peeta looked pale and drawn and like he was about to throw up, but Gale was one of the very few who could see that. Prim ran to Peeta's side and helped him out and onto his feet. Her hands were gentle but sure, and Gale found his place at Peeta's side, helping him stand tall and not lean too much on the sentimental gesture of a wooden leg.

Peeta, the graveyard at his back, looked out over the crowd. The sunset light hit his translucent skin and made him glow from within. His hair was dyed golden, and his eyes still shone with the vision of the place he'd been, and returned from. One hand rose unsteadily, not to make the farewell salute, but a gesture of blessing and welcome.

That was how the Great Awakening of District Twelve began. It was a moment that none who saw it would ever forget. Even the Peacekeepers took off their helmets, the better to see what was before them. Their weapons lay unheeded at their belts.

Gale privately wondered about what move to make next. Meanwhile, the mockingjays swooped overhead, cawing and crooning, for all the world like it was their show after all.

* * *

><p>AN: Stay tuned for one more chapter - an epilogue of sorts. Or, if you like cliffhangers, (and you likely do because you're a fan of _The Hunger Games_), you can stop here. In which case, thank you for reading! What a journey. And we're very nearly done.


	24. Smokeflower

The Aperture Games Epilogue:

**Smokeflower**

By vifetoile

Disclaimer: I still don't own _The Hunger Games_ or _Portal. _After all this time. Who would have thought?

This is the tenuous outline that I had planned for the continuation of _The Aperture Games_. I would have loved to give every character their due and plotline, but the Chell and Katniss plots are the most meaningful, to me. If you don't like it, then by all means make up your own. I am a big believer in Death of the Author. Anyone who does a crossover of _The Hunger Games_ and _Portal_ would kind of have to be.

Also, the map of Panem that I draw off of is that which fanfiction . net user aimmyarrowshigh created. You can find it here: aimmyarrowshigh dot livejournal plus a dot com. This means that the Aperture Science Enrichment Center is located somewhere in the middle of District Ten.

The title is _Smokeflower_, which refers to a particular type of flower that is found only in District Six and the edges of District Five. Smokeflowers are plants which only bloom after a wildfire has devastated the land; when the heat of the flame wakes up the seeds, and the ash nourishes the soil, then smokeflowers cover the land with bright orange, red, and yellow blossoms.

In the westernmost districts (Six and Five), smokeflowers are a symbol of hope, and of long-held promises that are fulfilled, because the seeds have been known to sleep in the soil for upwards of ten years, in some places. The symbol begins making a quiet revival, as mockingjays slowly fall out of favor with all but the most radical spirits.

Chell, under the name Katniss, spends an entire month in the Capitol with Haymitch and Wheatley, now dubbed Taysel. Snow has mapped out her itinerary carefully: every night she is passed from one party, banquet, gala, or art gallery opening to another. She's the star guest, and every day, after a few hours' sleep, she and Wheatley sit together on the couch in their deluxe Capitol apartment, and are "educated in the history of Panem" – by watching video footage of the Dark Days' War, and then of each of the Hunger Games, in chronological order. This combination leaves Chell too exhausted and anguished to think of stirring up any more trouble.

Even on her darkest days, though, Wheatley is capable of making her smile, and they stick close together. There's something almost desperate about how close Chell and Wheatley have become in such a short time: they depend on each other like the sole survivors of a shipwreck. Wheatley develops an appetite for human existence, and he learns to talk again, to Effie and Haymitch's everlasting chagrin. However, his prattle fits in perfectly well in the Capitol, especially as he develops a Capitol accent, which keeps people from recognizing his voice from the arena.

In District Thirteen, Coin takes advantage of the fact that the war has been delayed from her predictions. She begins to personally oversee Katniss' training as the Mockingjay. Joanna and Finnick train separately, and Wiress begins to master the vast complex array of technological data that controls Panem's communications. In between Katniss' physical training, Coin constantly plays mind games on her, to try and test where her loyalties lie: with Coin, or with herself? She never exactly hits on the truth: Katniss' loved ones are the ones she's really loyal to.

Coin also wants to sound out Katniss' feelings towards the woman replacing her in the Capitol's eyes. Katniss feels particularly betrayed by Chell, and wants to take her down. Coin likes this attitude.

After her month-long sojourn in the Capitol is up, Chell, Haymitch, and Wheatley return to District Twelve, with much pomp and circumstance at both ends of their journey. The prep team accompanies them, as does Portia, who by now is past mistress in the art of disguising Chell.

Katniss' family, Peeta's family, and Gale are all at the station, beaming and ready to greet "Katniss" as soon as she gets off the train. The crowd is jubilant. Prim runs to greet Katniss – but pauses halfway, looking at her again, really _looking_. Then she keeps running, and hugs Chell around the middle – knowing that the woman on the platform is a fake, but Haymitch is standing by and the Peacekeepers are around, and it won't do to out her "sister" then and there.

Gale realizes that "Katniss" is a fake, and doesn't move to greet her in any way. He stares at her, furious and confused, and only acknowledges her with chilly politeness. Then he makes his excuses and bows out.

Shortly after getting back to the Victor's Village, Prim leads "Katniss" out on a little walk through the woods, carefully avoiding the electric fence, just as Prim's sister taught her. When they're far away from surveillance, Prim says, in a low voice, "You aren't Katniss."

Chell says nothing, but nods in agreement. Prim asks where Katniss really is, and Chell says that, as far as she knows, Katniss died in the Arena after facing GLaDOS.

"But you can't be sure of death, down there," she finishes. "Believe me, I know." After a pause, she adds, "She may still be alive."

"Maybe." Prim answers. Prim shows Chell around the forest, finds a bow that Katniss carved – and puts it back. They return to District Twelve in silence.

Gale meets with Chell exactly once. He is cold and hostile towards her, thinking she's a Capitol plant. Chell gets very mad when he does, and asks if he's trying to get the whole District bombed. She explains, through clenched teeth, that if her ruse falls apart, Snow will not hesitate to retaliate. She and Gale part ways, with strong enmity but at least united in their hatred of Snow. After this, Gale disappears from District Twelve entirely. He and Peeta keep up a life in the wilderness between Districts Twelve and Eleven, with some help from families on both sides.

With Gale gone, Chell is grateful for the chance to live what is, mostly, a simple and straightforward life. She takes long walks under the trees and sky. She attempts to take up Katniss' "talent" of fashion design, but all of the figure drawings she attempts are unsettling fusions of people and machines. A little unsettling, to put it mildly, but Chell takes comfort in drawing them, and Wheatley asserts that he likes them. Chell much prefers to just talk to District Twelve people, and find out what they make of the world around them. She grows very fond of Prim, and her gentle steadiness.

In District Thirteen, Coin sends her invisible hoverplanes to scout around Panem, and to see if the idea of revolution is still strong. It _is_, but the symbol of the Mockingjay is beginning to lose its favor, and each larger region has their own symbols, and they each have a Victor to mourn.

Coin also sends scouts out to try and figure out a way into the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. It's slow going.

On one of these scouting trips, Katniss insists on going to District Eleven to talk with Seeder's and Rue's families. While there, their hoverplane is brought down – Peacekeepers have installed anti-invisibility shields around the two easternmost Districts, - and now they must wait for a District Thirteen ally to bring a portal gun, to allow them safe passage out. It is in hiding, then, that Katniss learns that Gale is a fugitive, and Peeta is still alive. At great personal risk, she meets with them.

Gale's life on the run has sharpened him, but he delights in it. He's not quite her companion of the woods anymore, but she is happy to see him and shares at once her doubts about Coin. Before Gale can advise her, Peeta is brought to meet them. In contrast to Gale, who has grown worldlier and more cunning, Peeta has grown softer and apparently more earnest. He says that he has had visions, and now knows his purpose in the greater game-board of the world, and his physical strength has been traded for spiritual wisdom.

In an aside, Gale tells Katniss that oxygen deprivation, or whatever the Gamemaker did to him, must have messed up what little brains he had left.

Either way, Peeta's powers of public speaking have been greatly improved, as he speaks with conviction and an otherworldly sense of purpose – that, plus the effect of seeing a man whom the entire country knows to be dead, around and walking, seems to have an effect on listeners.

Katniss sees at once that Coin would see Peeta as an asset, and she urges the two of them to stay hidden – and free – for a little while longer. She'll come and fetch them herself, when – and if – she judges that Coin will treat them fairly, and not as weapons. Katniss and her crew return to District Thirteen.

Months pass. As Chell holds up her end of the bargain, submitting to every television special Snow demands of her and playing her role perfectly, the packets of grain, oil, and presents continue to come for District Twelve's children and families. It comes time for the Victory Tour. Chell bids goodbye to Katniss' family, and once more plays the part of the diligent Victor, waving farewell to the people as the train pulls away.

First, a party in the Capitol. Wheatley drifts around, aimless once again, as none of the patient people of District Twelve are in sight, and Chell is taken up with every high something-or-other who wants a word in. That is, until Pandora Promachus, the new Head Gamemaker following Plutarch Heavensbee's mysterious flight – invites Wheatley to drinks with her crowd.

The tour begins in earnest, with a visit to Districts One and Two. As their loyalty is unquestioned, Chell is allowed to roam them next-to-unsupervised – and, like in District Twelve, she listens. She learns that miner's superstitions are very alike, whether in stone quarries or coal mines, and that folktales about birds and witches are the same between District One and Twelve.

She begins to write down what she learns, and keeps her book hidden even from Wheatley – to his great annoyance. It becomes the first big rift between them, but Chell insists that she have _some_ secrets, even from him. This brings up Wheatley's old fear of being useless and unwanted, which makes him put his hackles up.

In District Three, the massive machinery complexes and computers make Chell nervous, even sick to her stomach, and Wheatley, just to spite her, takes a terrific interest in electronics and their workings.

Meanwhile, in District Twelve, Katniss and an elite team move into the Victor's Village, and take Prim and Mrs. Everdeen with them to District Thirteen. Katniss at last feels some peace, with Prim at her side again.

Wheatley relents of his coldness towards Chell when they arrive at District Four, and he discovers that the ocean absolutely terrifies him. Chell helps him to manage his fear, for the time being, as the cold sea air stirs up memories in her that she can't fully grasp. The people of District Four are very welcoming, even if Annie Cresta is a bit alarming, with her constant assurances that Finnick is alive somewhere, and that Annie, too, was in the arena.

On they speed to District Five, where the Victor suspects Chell as a fraud. He is keen on investigating until a message from Snow reminds him that he has a wife and a daughter to lose if he displeases the Capitol.

Chell is glad to leave the stifling city of Five for the dry plains of Six – right up until she falls sick. She gets littlepox, a virus that is derived from chicken pox, which most residents of Panem contract when young – and most recover. But Chell has no antibodies for it, and gets very sick. Before long, Wheatley catches it, too. The Victory Tour grinds to a halt as District Six medics attend on Chell. In her fever, she begins to talk more freely than Snow would ever allow. Despite Peacekeeper threats, word of what she says starts to spread – that Katniss Everdeen is raving about help from underground, it wasn't always this way, there was fire and cake, and deep freezes, and Katniss is not her name, no, that is not her name.

Her illness coincides with a wildfire that burns through District Six, and brings smokeflowers to bloom once more. 'The Girl on Fire' becomes common parlance once more.

Perturbed, Snow has Chell sent on to District Seven as soon as her fever breaks. Wheatley, still ill, is returned to the Capitol.

The great forests and serene woods of District Seven suits Chell's current moods – the bout of fever has restored a large gap of her memory to her. It's jumbled up, like a hazy dream, but she can remember her parents, her old name, something of the world Before, and why she entered the Aperture Science laboratories when she wasn't an employee. (Both of her parents were, and they were taken hostage as test subjects when GLaDOS went crazy and took over the mainframe. Chell, then just a teenager, entered the laboratories to find them, and was claimed as a test subject herself.)

Now she takes time to herself, to think and be silent, and through Districts Seven and Eight she only goes through the motions of the Victor Tour, leading to some disappointment, especially with the revived 'Girl on Fire' buzz. With some threats, Snow reminds her of what she's meant to do, and on the next three districts she returns to form, smiling, waving, and once more _listening_ to the people of Panem.

Wheatley, abuzz with talk of how cool Pandora Promachus is, rejoins her in Eleven, brightening up what was otherwise a very grim visit, as the residents of District Eleven mistrust her and fear retribution.

Finally comes District Twelve – and at first Chell and Wheatley are glad. That night, when Chell gives a speech in the town square – her Katniss mannerisms and accent perfect, her gratitude and relief sincere – the feeds are suddenly cut. No audio, no video. Then, flames fill the screens. Katniss Everdeen's voice – the real Katniss Everdeen – is heard singing, and her voice is heard in every television set in Panem. Then she appears on screen, in armor only Cinna could craft. Her voice, strident and commanding, fills the air: "That is not Katniss Everdeen. She's not District Twelve; the Capitol has given you a replacement of me so you'll forget your anger. But don't forget, Panem. Don't forget Rue, don't forget Peeta, don't forget me. I am Katniss Everdeen; I am the Mockingjay."

The Capitol gains control of the signal, but by then it's too late. A riot breaks out in Twelve, and out of nowhere, out of the very forest, District Thirteen troops appear and route the Peacekeepers. Chell leads her entourage in making for the train, terrified thinking of what Snow will do next. Only one of her entourage remains in District Twelve: Haymitch, who doesn't even say good-bye to Chell. All he says is a "See you later" to Effie, who is as surprised as anyone to find that Haymitch thought to say goodbye to her. Radio signals between Peacekeepers and the Capitol are utterly scrambled, and with riot on their hands, the Peacekeepers retreat.

Two days later, when they've returned to the Capitol, Chell hears that District Eleven has also been claimed by District Thirteen troops. Shock and agitation rattle the country.

President Coin issues a formal declaration, claiming Districts Eleven and Twelve for Thirteen, and threatening that the war, delayed for a scant seventy-six years, is here at last. When she shows footage of Finnick Odair, alive and well with a portal gun, Chell realizes how Coin gained such a military advantage – she used four portal guns, from Katniss, Finnick, Joanna, and Wiress to transport weaponry and troops swiftly, one tech that the Capitol cannot hope to match.

When Chell returns to the Capitol, Snow places her under house arrest at once. He keeps up the façade that she is Katniss Everdeen, and is therefore making a show for the Capitol elite, that this Victor is authentic and still under his control. She becomes a mouthpiece to the Capitol, speaking less and less if there isn't a camera fixed on her. Wheatley, spending more time with Capitol cronies, begins to grow brusque and superior towards her, never realizing that he is the leverage for whose sake she plays along.

So, the eastern Districts begin to rally again under the symbol of the Mockingjay, and the Capitol and its loyal districts promote Chell's face and voice as the true victor. But the suspicious Victor of District Five rallies his District in taking an unusual third side – that the Quell Victor is not Katniss Everdeen, but she is, as a matter of fact, the Victor they want to support. Soon District Six joins its neighbor, and where Katniss Everdeen was bound up with the rallying cry "Mockingjay!", the Quell Victor is called "Smokeflower."

In District Eleven, Katniss finds Gale and Peeta and says that she fulfilled her promise – not by bringing them to District Thirteen, but by bringing District Thirteen to them. Katniss hopes that leading the successful taking of District Twelve means that Coin will respect her wishes to leave Peeta out of the spotlight. However, after the other Victors in District Thirteen have outed themselves as living, Peeta is brought to the nation's attention as the star of the snow. He becomes a part of the propaganda machine, almost happily, where his spiritualist speeches reach the whole awestruck nation.

The messages that District Thirteen put out claim to reveal the "truth" of what happened in the Quarter Quell arena, and most of them decry Chell and describe her in the worst possible terms. Now Chell feels that it is Katniss who betrayed her and continues to betray her, when Katniss should know the kind of pressures Chell is living under.

Behind the scenes, romantic drama begins to play out in Thirteen. Although Katniss continues her training under Coin, where the woman begins to treat Katniss more and more like a little protégé of her own (to Haymitch's disgruntlement), she wants to help Peeta recover. She sees what happened to him as damage. Peeta has genuinely lost sight of what's real and what's not in his and Katniss' relationship, and is convinced that she really is his wife and carrying their baby. Katniss tries to reconnect him to reality via art and baking. His skills as an orator continue to grow, and soon he prompts a religious awakening in the Mockingjay faction, which irritates Coin.

Soon Panem is divided into what appears to be a three-way civil conflict: in the east, those who rally behind the Mockingjay and seek to overturn the Capitol, slowly seizing more land along the way, focusing on reclaiming the central part of District Ten, for undisclosed reasons. In the west, the Smokeflower movement prompts a revival of studying the world and culture from before the dark Days – ancient vaults are broken into, lost films and computer files are brought to light. And in the Captiol and loyal Districts, the story is put out that the other Katniss Everdeen is a fabrication by District Thirteen, likely a mutt even, while the Capitol will prevail. It always does.

And to _prove_ that the Capitol will prevail, Snow orders an act which had fallen out of favor after the first Quell: Reapings are scheduled not a week in advance of the Games, but in a month. And the Capitol will still demand twenty-four tributes for the seventy-sixth game, and "Katniss" will mentor at least two of them.

Those Districts that are divided in loyalties suddenly find themselves receiving lots of goodies from the Capitol – usually jewelry and trinkets from District One, very little useful, as grain from District Eleven and meat from Ten are now scarce. Still, the attempt to win over loyal support in the days leading up to the Reaping is palpable. It's one of the first times in recent memory that the Capitol has attempted kindness.

On the new Reaping Day, District Four rebels, with the aid of District Thirteen, and led by Finnick Odair. The Peacekeepers are driven out by the very Careers they would have reaped, and District Four joins the Mockingjay faction.

(That night, a celebration is held, and Finnick and Annie are married with great joy.)

The Smokeflower faction does not have the might to resist the Capitol – but their processes are delayed when District Six rebels sabotage the train tracks. Five and Six tributes are therefore preserved from the Games.

In retribution, double the tributes are taken from Districts Nine, Eight, Ten, and Three. District Seven is left alone, as it is so divided that the Capitol wishes to not influence it negatively. More volunteers are "encouraged" to come from District Two.

The Training Center stands empty; the tributes are kept around the Capitol in randomly selected apartments, virtual prisoners. There is no training footage. The aired footage is the most brutal selections and highlights from Hunger Games past.

Chell now has to face the challenge of mentoring six tributes – because many mentors have either defected to a rival faction, or were killed in the Quell. There's also, of course, the trouble that Chell herself has no experience of a proper Game, or sponsors. The tributes she mentors range from trusting her completely to challenging her authority – and to their surprise, she allows them to question and doubt her. They become the first real human connection she's made in a long time. Still, when they question her about the Smokeflower or Mockingjay faction, she insists that she wants nothing to do with any of that, nothing whatsoever.

In the month leading up to the Games, Coin sends the elite team of District Thirteen – including Katniss – on a mission to infiltrate the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, and see what they can use there of Aperture tech. Katniss leads the way, reluctant but no longer so afraid of the darkness and the underground spaces.

To the team's surprise, GLaDOS is operational and awake. She won't say how. She says that she can spare some time between monitoring her new "test subjects" – robots cobbled together from spare parts, with portal guns grafted to their arms.

Katniss speaks on Coin's behalf, offering a larger enrichment center, and all the test subjects she could want, and even power over Panem, if GLaDOS will help President Coin. But GLaDOS refuses. She says she's not interested in the same deal twice. Katniss then leads Plan B – seizing the Aperture Science Enrichment Center in the name of District Thirteen and declaring it a military outpost.

GLaDOS does not take kindly to it, so the elite team hightails it out of there and leaves guards posted at the known entrances to the Center, while Katniss returns to District Thirteen. Reluctantly, she tells Coin what she knows of Aperture Science's practice of uploading brains and fragments of brains into machinery. Coin is _very_ interested in this.

Meanwhile, back at the Capitol, one night shortly before the seventy-sixth Game, Chell receives a message. It's coded and encrypted, but she's good at puzzles. When she cracks the code, it says, "Remember that we were allies. Remember Mimi, Craig, Kevin, and Rick. Wheatley is one of them now. We will stop the Games. Join us. Please. KE."

Chell doesn't know whether to trust this message, and doesn't respond. She hasn't responded to the messages sent to her by the Smokeflower faction, begging her to run away to the Capitol and join them. She never responds.

One week before the Games themselves start, Chell is sitting in her apartment, reviewing a list of her tributes' strengths and weaknesses, when Wheatley drops in unannounced. _Sashays_ in, rather, proud and resplendent in long, purple robes. He gleefully informs her that Pandora Promachus has seen his _marvelous _potential, and has trained him up, pulled a few strings, and made him a Gamemaker. Isn't that terrific?

He blathers on, ignorant to Chell's shock, sadness, and then coldness towards him. It feels inevitable, somehow – Wheatley got it into his head that Chell had forgotten him (she hadn't, how could she, but she had so much else to do) and then, just give him a little power and he'll be as biddable as a puppet on a string. Now, he has a taste of a Gamemaker's power and it rules him. He sees District children the way that the Capitol sees them – as fun little players, as tough warriors, as sweet victims, not as _people_. She should have imagined it would play out this way.

She tries to reason with him, but he maintains that she was just jealous, she had always been trying to tear him down, he didn't need her anyway.

Chell closes her mouth, and at once she files Wheatley under 'enemy.' He snaps at her and demands "Well? Say something!" but she refuses. She won't give him the satisfaction. He storms out. Chell does let herself grieve, not yet, because it would tear her apart, and now she needs to be whole. Snow has lost his leverage – and that meant that at last, Chell can act.

She continues to mentor her tributes, up until the night of the Interviews. Then, she takes every cent of money she's earned as a "Victor," and divides it up into the sponsor's funds for the tributes – all twenty-four of them, evenly shared. She gives her book of Panem folklore to Effie (who may not be as understanding as Portia, but still trustworthy), and then – she vanishes.

The next day, as Game prep is underway, word hits the Capitol that "Katniss Everdeen" Is missing. The tributes are taken to the arena, the same one that saw 74 previous Games. Wheatley, in Gamemaker Central, worries incessantly about Chell. He panics, and has a crisis of conscience. Right when the countdown to enter the launching tubes begins, Wheatley snaps. He punches the Gamemaker in charge of the microphone, takes it over, and yells into the PA, "Run! Run! Or – just stay put, whatever you like! Just don't enter those tubes!" He has no plan, and things might have gone very badly from there (with Peacekeepers holding the tributes from leaving their launch rooms, the Games countdown beginning, and Snow and fellow Gamemakers getting pretty irritated, to put it mildly), when, like a bunch of big damn heroes, District Thirteen arrives.

Mockingjay troops break into the infrastructure surrounding the arena, and free one tribute after another – taking them into District Thirteen custody, of course. The Gamemakers are also arrested, with Wheatley being the only one to give up without a fight.

Meanwhile, footage cuts to Katniss Everdeen, infiltrating deep into the Capitol, with bows ready to destroy President Snow, surrounded by heavily armored robot bodyguards – and Peeta, and Gale. With them, Katniss wields one of District Thirteen's precious portal guns, and what appears to be a small talking radio, about the size and shape of a potato.

Snow shields himself in his mansion as the Capitol, for the first time in many a long year, goes into lockdown mode. Troops of the Mockingjay faction flood the city, each led by a separate Victor.

But Katniss' team, despite their loudly stated goals, do not head for Snow's mansion. They make for the largest radio and communications tower in the Capitol. There, they plug in the talking potato, and…

The talking potato is in fact storage for an artificial intelligence, which promptly takes over the Capitol's communication lines and computer networks. But the voice on the potato is not GLaDOS, not Caroline, not even Wheatley – but President Alma Coin, who uploaded herself into a computer, putting her own comatose body in the care of District Thirteen's medics. She declares sovereignty of the Capitol – the ultimate coup. Thus begins the Battle of the Capitol, which is not a perfect nomenclature. Troops of District Thirteen attempt to seize the still-divided Districts, but the people there fight back, particularly Districts One and Two, as they demand to see their own tributes returned to them.

It's Katniss' job to guard this tower, and to make sure that COinDOS' connection to the mainframe stays secure (the name COinDOS, by the way, was Joanna's idea). As the hours go on, five, then ten, then twenty-four, then thirty-six, it's Katniss' job to keep the COinDOS mainframe from going completely ballistic, and launching nuclear strikes against the uncooperative districts. It becomes a battle of Katniss' willpower against Coin's, as Coin is now immortal and tireless, but Katniss still remembers her humanity.

Two days into this fighting, Chell makes it safely into District Five. She had a detour on the way – breaking into a laboratory in the Capitol and stealing back the red-and-black portal gun that she had with her when she left the Quell Arena, and then sneaking into the basement of the abandoned Training Center – but once she arrives, she makes it clear that she needs airtime, stat. Is it a full moon tonight? So much the better.

A Smokeflower broadcast barely interrupts the carnage, until Chell's face and voice appears on the screen. She wears orange and white, and a smokeflower is in her hair and her portal gun in her hands. She says, "I am Chell Serafin. And I'm going to make a statement."

She lifts up her portal gun and fires an orange portal into the sky. For an instant, disbelieving laughter bubbles up around the nation –

Then, cut to the moon, where the portal lands.

And then cut to the Training Center.

No camera sees the blue portal secured in the basement of the Training Center, but cameras six miles away see the building implode on itself as the vacuum of space opens up below the Center, and obliterates it to rubble before Chell cancels both portals, and the howling winds around the Capitol fall still.

Chell declares that whoever strikes next will get the next attack

It's a bluff. Katniss sees through it. You can't open a portal just _anywhere_. But Katniss hides a smile at Chell's audacity, and declares a truce, in the moment when everyone else is too thunderstruck to act. The Capitol follows. Medics of District Six and mediators of District Five arrive swiftly, to tend to those already wounded, and to attempt a real peace treaty.

Meanwhile, Katniss and Wiress take COinDOS offline. Katniss only trusts herself with keeping the COinDOS receptacle (the potato) safe. While Snow is in custody, and Coin is neutralized, the two most dangerous players in the war are off the table.

No one is optimistic about this peace treaty, and tensions are very high when Katniss and Chell walk into negotiations and lay eyes on one another for the first time in a year. The first condition which Chell sets is the immediate return of all tributes to their families. Katniss agrees to this at once… and things are off to a decent start.

Slowly, laboriously, trying to staunch bitterness and blood between Districts and Capitol people, a treaty emerges. No more Games, representation of all Districts, resources to be shared between Districts evenly.

Of course, as this is Panem, a blood sacrifice must be paid. Katniss publicly executes President Snow, an arrow to the throat. The Gamemakers are also executed, but Chell asks for Wheatley to be spared. He pleads to be returned to his little core body as a fitting punishment – and when he sees Chell face to face again, he thinks she's forgiven him. But it turns out the most he gets is a second chance. He and Chell start over – no desperation, no leverage.

Katniss is left with COinDOS in a potato battery, and is left to decide what to do with her. If Coin is returned to her body, Katniss knows she'll become a tyrant as despotic as Snow. She's gotten to know Coin very well. COinDOS tells Katniss that she has no authority to judge – and Katniss responds, "Maybe I don't, but I don't think there is an authority high enough." Katniss puts out the word that Coin died, and keeps COinDOS in storage, while Coin's body is put into cryogenic storage. Perhaps, one day, she'll judge that Coin is safe again.

Time passes. Katniss focuses on rebuilding District Twelve, almost to the exclusion of the other Districts. She's glad, though, to no longer be the Mockingjay, and to have Prim at her side. Peeta continues his slow healing, and Gale takes to wandering Panem, to help in whatever way he can – though he stops by District Seven quite frequently. Haymitch, meanwhile, finds some peace, and argues a lot with Effie for many years. Plutarch is frequently seen in District Twelve, boasting that if it had been up to _him_, then this whole rebellion would have been cleaned up a lot sooner – and it wouldn't have been as messy!

GLaDOS and the tech of Aperture Science is used to help rebuild Panem. A Parliament and a fair government is set up. Chell puts herself in charge of distributing and managing Aperture Science tech, and still doesn't entirely trust GLaDOS. Wheatley helps, slowly gaining back the grace he had lost. But she's glad to see remnants of the world Before the Dark Days coming to light.

It takes many months, but Katniss and Chell become able to talk to one another again. Chell shows Katniss her book of Panem folklore, and Katniss understands why Chell took on her name and identity. Slowly, their friendship repairs itself, as they repair the nation of Panem, and bring it into a new age – hopefully – of peace.

- The End -

And… that's it.

Alternate (silly) ending idea was to have Coin and Snow both uploaded into computer programs, and forced to work for GLaDOS as Co-op Testing Bots for the rest of eternity. Actually I originally came up with that idea for Beetee and Wiress, but wrote it off as too cruel. I don't have the stomach for violence.

Thank you so much for reading. This has been quite a roller-coaster ride; wasn't always sure I would make it to the end, or that the story would be worth it. It's you, the readers, who kept me going on this story, when I was determined _not_ to make it a dead end fic like so many others. So thank you, for reading, for reviewing, and for supporting me.

Thanks are also due to the creators of _Portal_, and the _Portal_ fandom on Tumblr for bringing me even more into the fandom than I was already; and to Suzanne Collins and the entire team responsible for publishing _The Hunger Games_.

And so, readers, farewell. Enjoy _Catching Fire_ (in theaters Nov. 22nd! The canonical version of '_The Aperture Games'_!), and may the portals be ever in your favor.


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